DEVELOPING THE FORMS OF DIALOGUE FOR A

'RAINBOW NATION' 

South African Journal of Philosophy. Aug97, Vol. 16 Issue 3, p79. 6p.Department of Education, University of the
Witwatersrand, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, South Africa
Received April 1997; revised June 1997
In order to develop an educative response to the uncertainty and insecurity experienced in the face of difference I
develop a distinction between defensive and philosophical responses to the anxiety of difference. Basing my
elaboration on an exploration of some of the writing of Thomas, Kuhn, Emmanuel Levinas and Jean Paul Sartre I
maintain that a defensive response to the anxiety of difference is one which seeks to avoid the 'look of the other'
while a philosphical response to difference is one which embraces the 'face' of the other in such a way that the
experience of otherness becomes the basis of an existential education.

Die ervaring van verskil is beangstigend en bring die onsekeheid mee waarop daar verskillend gereageer word.
Deur 'n onderskeiding te ontwikkel tussen 'n defensiewe en 'n filosofiese respons op die beangstiging van verskil,
word eargumenteer dat daar opvoedingsmoontlikhede opgesluit is en die ervaring van verskil. In die aansluiting
by en verkenning van temas in die denke van Kuhn, Sartre en Levinas word verder betoog dat die 'blik van die
ander' vermy word in die defensiewe respons op die beangstiging van verskil, terwyl die filosofiese respons juis
so omgaan met die 'gelaat van die ander' dat die andersheid die grondslag word vir 'n eksistensiele opvoeding.

Relationships between people of different cultures are, in the context of today's South Africa, torn between at
least two possibilities. On the one hand there is the tendency to embrace otherness and difference. This is the
dream of the 'rainbow nation' articulated in President Nelson Mandela's inaugural address: 'Many Cultures, One
Nation: ... The theme of President Mandela's inauguration, is a beautiful concept' as Holphe Bham (1995) states.
On the otherhand there is a fear of otherness. This point is articulated by Bishop Tutu:
In a time of transition such as ours, people are insecure and uncertain because well-known landmarks have
shifted or are shifting, and they look for security in sameness and homogeneity. They are scared of difference
which heightens their anxiety, and so we see an aversion to diversity, be it of opinion or ethnicity or whatever
(1995).
The difference between the dream (Many cultures: One Nation) and the everyday reality (security in sameness
and homogeneity) is the experience of uncertainty and insecurity. For, as Tutu makes clear, it is this uncertainty
which leads many of those who embrace the dream of a 'rainbow nation' to search, in their everyday practices for
security in 'sameness'. How can we transform the anxiety and uncertainty that, in the context of difference, leads
to the desire for homogeneity, into the desire to embrace otherness and difference?[1]
In this paper I address the logic underlying the anxiety and uncertainty experienced in the face of difference
within South Africa. I demonstrate that there are at least two kinds of responses to the anxiety experienced in the
face of difference, what I shall call a 'defensive' and a 'philosophical' response. As I shall demonstrate, a
defensive response is characterised by the withdrawal into, as Tutu puts it, 'sameness and homogeneity' while
the philosophical response allows for an edifying response to otherness. I also show that the philosophical
response to the anxiety of difference allows for the possibility of transcending, as Bham puts it, 'barriers of race,
gender, class and religion' which will allow South Africa to become 'many cultures [in] one nation.'
The paper is divided into four parts. In the first part I show how incommensurability forms the condition of
possibility of a dialogue across difference. In Part 2 I develop the logic of a 'defensive' form of dialogue across
difference. In Part 3 I develop the logic of a 'philosophical' form of dialogue across difference. Part 4 is the
conclusion in which I argue that if we wish to build a nation of many cultures we need to develop a 'philosophical'
rather than a 'defensive' response to the anxiety of difference.
If, as Thomas Kuhn in his book The structure of scientific revolutions argues, different paradigms are
incommensurable, what are the implications of this for different cultures? The differences between different
paradigms refer to different metaphysical and theoretical assumptions, different rules and techniques for applying
the rules. The differences between different cultures are different customs, traditions and histories: they are
differences not only of ways of seeing and understanding the world but are differences in ways of being in the
world, that is, they refer to the different ways in which people relate to 'nature' or to the 'means of production', the
differences in the way people relate to each other and the 'different ways in which people think about these
relationships. Whereas paradigms, as outlined by Kuhn, involve nothing more than a commitment to a set of
theoretical ideas or metaphysical assumptions, cultures involve a commitment to a specific material reality. This
would suggest that it is much more difficult to communicate across cultural difference.
If incommensurability means that because there exists no common standard of evaluation, communication
across paradigms is impossible, this has very negative implications for multicultural communication in South
Africa: if we are to uphold a doctrine of incommensurability must we give up on communication and dialogue
between different cultures? There is evidence to suggest that some of the proponents of apartheid believed this.
John Vorster's defence of apartheid could be justified in the language of incommensurability:
Our only guide is the Bible. Our policy and outlook on life are based on the Bible. We firmly believe the way we
interpret it is right. We will not budge an inch from our interpretation to satisfy anyone in South Africa or abroad.
The world may differ from our interpretation. This will not influence us. The world may be wrong. We are right and
will continue to follow the way the Bible teaches (1970).
Perhaps not as aggressively, directly or dogmatically this same logic can be said to apply to reductive versions of
theorising; reductive Marxists, liberals, phenomenologists, psychoanalysts, Jungians, in the name of being true to
their paradigms believe that their interpretation and its basis is the correct one and they will act in terms of it.
Indeed, Aletta Norval has argued that the reductive logic underlying apartheid is a characteristic of western
metaphysics. Both are characterised by a refusal of otherness, which they escape through reductive and
totalizing tendencies. (1994:119) Commenting on the work of Fynsk, she says that 'apartheid raises significant
questions for Western political thought in that it speaks to something already existing in the political discourse of
the West' (1994:119).
In the context of incommensurability we are epistemologically justified when we can justify our argument or
position in the language of our own paradigm. We cannot be expected to enter the paradigm of the other or to
look at ourselves in terms of the paradigms of others because there is no belief or assumption that
incommensurate paradigms hold in common and thus no shared standard to dialogue across difference.
Therefore we are free to develop in our own terms, separately from the watchful eye of other paradigms.
However, this does not stop us from looking at others in our terms and of in fact reducing them to our terms.
Indeed while Vorster refuses to enter a dialogue with others, he is not afraid to reduce the other to his framework
of reference. This reduction is quite typical of most nationalisms which judge others in their own terms but do not
appreciate the significance of the fact that other nations have different terms in which they experience and relate
to the world.
The reduction syndrome occurs not only in the arena of political nationalism but, as Derrida has noted, academia
is divided into a series of nationalisms each of which are committed to their own language, method and
standards of truth. Furthermore, as many others have noted, academic discourses tend to analyse each other in
their own terms without looking at themselves in the paradigms of the others that they are analysing. There are
many tensions within paradigms and disciplines that indicate this point. As Harry Redner maintains 'nationally
based philosophical organizations are ... barely on speaking terms with each other. Every induced or incited
colloquium between philosophers of different persuasions results in a dialogue of the deaf- all speak but nobody
hears ...'(1986:5).
The danger of the incommensurability thesis is that it, wittingly or unwittingly, promotes an academic and political
nationalism in which each feels justified in withdrawing into the security of their own. However, the
incommensurability thesis does not mean that we avoid being impacted upon by those who share a paradigm
that is incommensurable with our own. We cannot avoid the 'gaze', 'look' or 'face' of the other. For some it means
exclusion from a university, for others it means being told that they are irrational or sick - and for others that they
are uncivilised or barbaric. An example of this is a well-documented antipathy between Jungians and Freudians
in the context of psychoanalysis. Commenting on this, Andrew Samuels has said: 'The Freudians have frozen
Jungians out of the universities. Freud even set up a committee to ensure his people controlled psychoanalysis.'
But such situations are not limited to the field of psychiatry. Marek Siemek claims that, in the context of a concern
with Truth, Marxism and hermeneutics simply have 'no access to one another.' Continuing his point, he maintains
that a Marxism which operates in terms of a rigid distinction between base and superstructure 'could only view
hermeneutic reflection as its own contradiction. The hermeneutic tradition, in turn, tended to aggravate rather
than weaken this antagonism' (1984:33).
The incommensurability thesis, however, does not account for the logic of the interaction that takes place in the
context of the gaze of the other. It does not even recommend a respectful silence. The incommensurability thesis
offers a concept of dialogue and interchange under normal conditions, that is, for those who share a paradigm.
But what we South Africans, in our multiparadigm universities and multicultural cities, need to develop is the logic
of interchange that occurs when members of incommensurable paradigms and discourses are thrown into
relationship with each other.
As I will demonstrate, the gaze or look of the other is an occasion for a certain kind of dialogue or what I shall call
a meta1ogue, a dialogue about the paradigms in which we construct the world. As Kuhn himself notes, the
scientist in his normal everyday activities as a scientist is not explicitly aware of his paradigm. It forms the taken
for granted background in terms of which he functions as a scientist. It is only in times of crisis that he can no
longer take his paradigm for granted but becomes reflectively aware of the horizon in which his scientific
research was conducted. As I will demonstrate through the writings of Sartre and Levinas, the look or face of the
other can fulfil the same role as crisis for Kuhn. The look and face of the other rupture our everyday complacency
in the world in such a way that we come face to face with our taken for granted paradigms. In coming face to face
with our paradigms we can either enter into a 'philosophical' or 'defensive' dialogue with the other. A philosophical
dialogue is one in which we are prepared to deconstruct our paradigm in the face of the other. A defensive
dialogue is one in which we seek to defend our paradigm at all costs against deconstruction. The name of
Levinas will be used to elaborate the philosophical dialogue and the name of Sartre will be used to elaborate the
defensive dialogue. The gaze or look of the other is not necessarily destructive but can be an occasion for
existential education - or what Rorty calls 'edification', namely, the occasion for redescribing the taken for granted
terms in which the world makes sense.
Levinas shares Kuhn's belief concerning incommensurability in that he believes that there is no independent
criterion in terms of which different discourses can be measured and assessed. Or putting this in the language of
Levinas, the Other is forever irreducible to the Same: ' ... the radical separation between the same and other
means precisely that it is impossible to place oneself outside of the correlation between the same and other so as
to record the correspondence or non-correspondence of this going with this return' (1985: 36).
But whereas Kuhn sees incommensurability as a sign of the inability to communicate across paradigms, for
Levinas, it is the condition of possibility of a certain type of communication, one which cannot be held by
members who share a common paradigm. For Levinas in the encounter with the Other of an incommensurable
paradigm I come to see and experience what is taken for granted in my own paradigm. As John Wild has written:
According to Levinas, speaking becomes serious only when we pay attention to the other and take account of
him and the strange world he inhabits. It is only by responding to him that I become aware of the arbitrary views
and attitudes into which my uncriticized freedom always leads me, and become responsible, that is able to
respond. It is only then that I see the need of justifying my egocentric attitudes, and of doing justice to the other in
my thought and in my action (1985: 15).
Whilst absorbed within the work of my own paradigm, I do not see or experience it. It is in the face of the
Stranger that I come to see my self or my own. This point is made in another way by Zigmund Bauman who says
that in the meeting of the stranger 'Our unconscious customs and habits have been shown to us in a distorted
mirror of sorts. We have been forced to look at them, ... to stand at a critical distance from our own lives'
(1990:60).
Indeed on my own I do not come to see the taken for granted horizon or background intelligibility in terms of
which my experience makes sense. The rupture experienced in the face of the stranger is the condition for
sighting myself. However, while the stranger calls me to look at myself, I do not know how to look at myself in the
face of the stranger. As Bauman maintains, in the experience of the stranger the familiar terms of my paradigm
are in question and thus do not constitute the terms in which questioning takes place. I cannot thus rely on my
paradigm and have nothing upon which to rely - no ground, no foundation. The rupture of my paradigm by the
stranger is the experience of the unfamiliar or the not at home. The experience of the stranger in fact gives rise to
an experience of the strangeness of human existence. To experience the not-at-home is to experience existential
anxiety.
For both Levinas and Sartre, the experience of the incommensurable other does not give rise to a simple
relativism or pluralism but is a traumatic experience of my limits and a very real challenge of being able to look at
myself without having a familiar paradigm in which to do this. There are at least two opposing ways of responding
to this challenge, namely either to withdraw into the familiarity of 'one's own' or to embrace otherness. The first
possibility is characteristic of nationalism's and fundamentalism while the second possibility underlies what I shall
call existential philosophical education. The following quotation from bell hooks exemplifies the nationalist
possibility: 'What we are witnessing today in our everyday life is not an eagerness on the part of neighbours and
strangers to develop a world perspective but a return to narrow nationalism, isolationism, and xenophobia.' This
nationalism, she continues, is 'coupled with a notion of security that suggests we are always most safe with
people of our same group, race, class, religion, and so on' (1994).
The second possibility is exemplified in the works of Deleuzeand Guattarri who maintain that 'philosophers are
Strangers ... "societies of friends" formed by emigres' (1994:87). It also is expressed in the writing of Barnd Jager
(1990:157) who sees the act of theorising as being rooted in the rupture of the familiar experienced when leaving
the security of the home: 'Theorizing made its first appearance as an arduous journey to a place of divine
manifestation in the service of community. It required first of all a leaving behind of the familiar and comforting
sounds and sights of habitual life ... Once the theorist had achieved the object of his journey .... he faced the task
of finding and following the path that would lead him from the festive heights back to the plane of everyday
existence...'
The logic of the first of these possibilities is outlined by Sartre and the logic of the second by Levinas. It is to an
outline of these logics that I now turn. Sartre helps us to understand the frightening implications of this irreducible
relationship while Levinas offers us an edifying version of it. Beginning with Sartre who develops his concept of
interpersonal relationships as a way of dealing with the question: how do we know that others exist? According to
Sartre, the way in which we know that others exist is by the impact that others have on us. The other take us out
of our unreflective immediacy. To be in the presence of an other is to come face to face with a different
perspective on oneself. In the presence of an other there is a decentring of one's own world and a simultaneous
recentering around the other. In the face of the other' ... there is a regrouping in which I take part but which
escapes me, a regrouping of all the objects which people my universe .... Thus suddenly an object has appeared
which has stolen the world from me .... The appearance of the Other in the world corresponds therefore to a fixed
sliding of the whole universe, to a decentralization of the world which undermines the centralization which I am
simultaneously effecting' (1976: 255).
Sartre calls this experience 'The Look'. To be looked at by the other is to stand in a different relationship to
oneself and one's world. Instead of being absorbed in and concerned with one's activities, the look of the other
calls one to a reflective awareness of oneself, an awareness that one cannot have in isolation. In the look of the
other, one has to answer for oneself. Sartre gives the following example: imaging, motivated by jealousy or
curiosity, peeping through a keyhole. Because I need to know what is going on, I am totally absorbed in what I
see. I have no thematic awareness of what I am doing: I need to know. I am thoroughly absorbed in whatever it is
that I am looking at. Suddenly I hear footsteps down the passage. I see someone looking at me. Now I am no
longer drawn to what is on the other side of the keyhole but am drawn to myself as looking through the keyhole. I
see myself as looking through the hole. I want to tell this other, this stranger, that it is not what it seems. But it is
in fact too late. I am ashamed.
The look of the other indicates that there is a perspective on the world which is other than mine, a perspective
which cannot be absorbed into my own - one which escapes me. The world is not only the world as it appears to
me but as it appears to the other. I have to reckon with the perspective of the other. I have to re-evaluate my way
of looking at the world in terms of the presence of his look. I am called to weigh my view up against his.
For Sartre this gives rise to a simultaneous desire for and resistance to the other: on the one hand, the look of
the other is an alienation of myself: 'The other is the hidden death of my possibilities in so far as I live that death
as hidden in the midst of the world' (1976: 264). Thus I need to escape the look of the other. The way in which I
attempt to escape the look of the other is by turning the other into an object. In this way I escape the others
perspective on me. In terms of this paper this takes the form of reifying the other as an object to be analysed in
my own terms without looking at my terms in the context of the paradigm of the other. For example if I am a
psychoanalyst I will see the other as 'resistant', or 'repressed', without seeing the limits of my language in the
paradigm of the other. On the other hand I need the other. The other is the source of my objectification. Without
the recognition of the other I have no identity outside of myself. I am then lost in the despair of Hegel's Stoic who
is able only to affirm the reality of its world of thought but not the reality external to it: 'The Other looks at me and
as such he holds the secret of my being, he knows what I am' (1976: 363).
Thus, for Sartre, human relations are a struggle in which I simultaneously resist and affirm the other. The other is
both the condition of my self-affirmation as well as an experience of threat to my identity: 'While I attempt to free
myself from the hold of the Other, the Other is trying to free himself from mine; while I seek to enslave the Other,
the Other seeks to enslave me' (1976:364). In the context of nationalism this means that my partitular national
identity is both dependant upon and called into question by the way that I am looked at by the other. I am an
Afrikaner, a Zulu, a Jew only through the look of the other. And therefore there is a level upon which I need to
grateful to the other. But the other threatens my freedom and therefore I resist the objectification by the other. I
wish to concur the other in order to posses he who allows me to see myself.
Summing up Sartre's view of being with others it can be said that for Sartre the 'Look' of the other is the condition
of my objectification. On my own I cannot develop a sense of my identity. It is only in the experience of the look of
the other that I develop a sense of self. While I am dependant upon the objectification of the other for my sense
of self, I also resist this objectification because it deprives me of my freedom in that I am dependant on the being
of the other for my being. The look of the other always escapes me. I can never control the way in which the
other looks at me. Resistance to the 'look' of the other takes the form of attempting to disempower the other by
attempting to posses the freedom of the other, that is by attempting to posses the way in which the other looks at
me. This I do by making them an object for me. However in the very moment that I constitute the other as an
object for me I deprive myself of my objectivity. For to constitute the other as an object is to deprive them of their
'Look' and to deprive them of their 'look' is to deprive myself of being looked at - the very condition of my
objectivity. To posses the freedom of the other would mean to reduce the other to my perspective. To reduce the
other to my perspective would mean that there is no longer an independent look in terms of which I am
constituted. Human relationships cannot but be a nightmare.
What is fascinating is that Levinas affirms the same rupture in one's relationship to the Other but draws
fundamentally different implications from it. Levinas would agree with Sartre that the Other decentres my
perspective on the world and he would agree that this also means the end of my solitude. But for Levinas this
ambiguity does not culminate in a never ending struggle for power in which each are attempting to reduce the
other to their perspectives. Rather the experience of strangeness encountered in the face of the other is the
condition of going outside or beyond the self. It is the condition of embracing the new and the different and is the
grounds for wonder or edification. Levinas uses the terms 'metaphysical' and 'ethical' to describe the possibility of
going beyond the self.
It is to an elaboration of the Levinasian logic that I now turn. If incommensurability leads to a position in which
each paradigm is locked in its own world, its own way of seeing things, if incommensurability means that I can
avoid the perspective of the other - because I can only see things within the framework of my way of seeing
things, then it is a narcissistic philosophy or, what Immanuel Levinas in his book Totality and infinity (1985a),
would call an 'egology', a philosophy which does not do justice to the being of what is other and strange. We
avoid looking at the other's position by looking at the other in terms of our own position on the other instead of
looking at ourselves in the way that the other sees us. We resist the look of the other by treating them as an
object to be analysed. From the perspective of Immanuel Levinas an egology is any philosophy which attempts to
reduce what he calls the 'Other' to what he calls the 'Same'. It is any philosophy which believes that it can reduce
all of being to its point of view. Such a philosophy ' ... is hence not a relationship with the other as such but the
reduction of the other to the same. ... Thematization and conceptualization ...are not peace with the other but
suppression or possession of the other. For possession affirms the other, but with a negation of its
independence. "I think" comes down to "I can"-to an appropriation of what is, to an exploitation of reality' (1985:
46).
For Levinas the other is always more than the ways in which Imay objectify them. The other is not reducible to
my perspective but has a perspective on me which escapes me. The terms in which I analyse the other can
never capture the Otherness of the other. As one commentator of Levinas has put it: The other ' ... does not
merely present me with lifeless signs into which I am free to read meanings of my own ... The other is not an
object that must be interpreted and illuminated by my alien light. He shines forth with his own light, and speaks
for himself' (1985: 14). Levinas calls the irreducible perspective of the other the face: 'The way in which the other
presents himself, exceeding the idea of the other in me, we here name face .... The face of the Other at each
moment destroys and overflows the plastic image it leaves me ...' (1985:51). When ever I constitute the other as
an object of knowledge I succeed only in grasping the 'plastic image' of the other and not the face of the other.
The face of the Other 'cannot become a content, which your thought would embrace; it is uncontainable, it leads
you beyond' (1985B: 8687). The psychoanalyst who diagnosis 'resistance' or 'repression' in has patient, the
marxist who condemns the middle class in the name of 'false consciousness' - both of these grasp nothing more
than the 'plastic image' of the face. For Levinas the constitution of the other as an object of study is an ethically
unjust activity, for it refuses to recognise the face of the other. It is an imposition of one's own on to the other. For
Levinas a form of knowledge which reduces the other to its own perspective is a form of tyranny (1985:47) or
what I shall colonialism of truth and knowledge, for it is colonialism which is always reducing the other to its own
perspective.
The 'overflowing' face and the irreducibility of the other through all forms of reduction and objectification means
that there is no escape from the otherness of the other. This does not mean that I cannot escape the other. It is
the Otherness of the other that is inescapable. Murder, for example, is a form of escaping the other by removing
their presence but in so far as I can never escape the fact of murder I cannot escape the otherness of the other.
The inability to reduce the otherness of the other to my perspective calls for a different kind of relationship to the
other. Instead of constituting the other as an object of discourse or study, I am called upon to respond to the
other. Responding rather than knowing becomes the primary mode of engagement with the other. As Cohen
(1985) has said: 'The responsibility to respond to the other is, for Levinas, precisely the inordinate responsibility
of being-for-other before oneself.' For Levinas, the shift from knowledge of the other to responding to the other is
also a shift from epistemology and ontology to ethics. Our primary concern in relationship to the other is not to
know them but to be with them. Being with others is characterised by conversation with rather than analysis of
others:
To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the
idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I ...
But this also means: to be taught .... Teaching is not reducible maieutics: it comes from the exterior and brings
me more than I contain (1985:51).
To stand in a educational relationship with the other is also to stand in an ethical relationship to the other. For the
condition of possibility of ethics and education coincide for Levinas. They are both rooted in the experience of
being called into question by the face of the other 'A calling into question of my spontaneity by the presence of
the Other ethics. The strangeness of the Other, his irreducibility to the I, to my thoughts and my possessions, is
precisely accomplished as a calling into question of my spontaneity, as ethics' (1985: 43).
In fact it could be argued that an educational attunement is the appropriate ethical attunement for strangers.
Those who are unfamiliar with each others ways of being-in-the-world need to develop a sense of each other
before they can judge each other. Furthermore because the stranger calls my being into question, the meeting
with the stranger is the occasion for an existential education. Unlike those who believe that teaching and
conversation cannot take place across incommensurable discourses, Levinas believes that it begins with our
incommensurability. Of course it is a specific type of teaching and conversation. Levinas calls this type of
teaching and conversation metaphysics. Metaphysics begins in the experience of the otherness of the other. For
in the experience of the otherness of the other I am called into question. Unlike in the case of Sartre, being called
into question is not simply something that I resist but is the beginning point of what was once called 'first
philosophy' or 'metaphysics'. For philosophy and metaphysics are the activity of questioning what is taken for
granted. The questioning of what is taken for granted cannot occur in the solipsicism of egoism but is brought
about by the 'overflowing' face of the other: 'Metaphysics, transcendence, the welcoming of the other by the
same, of the Other by me, is concretely produced as the calling into question of the same by the
other...'( 1985:43).
The experience of the otherness of the other decentres my world and infuses a sense of strangeness into it. The
experience of strangeness is the condition of metaphysical being, of taking me outside and beyond myself:
Metaphysics... appears as a movement going forth from a world that is familiar to us, whatever be the yet
unknown lands that bound it or that hides it from view, from an 'at home' ... which we inhabit, toward an alien
outside-ofoneself ..., toward a yonder (1985:33).
Metaphysics is thus the ability to embrace the strangeness of otherness. This position has also been articulated
by Richard Rorty who claims that it is in the experience of the strangeness of the other that we open ourselves up
to the possibility of edification, that is, the possibility of experiencing ourselves and our world in new ways:
The attempt to edify (ourselves or others) may consist in the hermeneutic activity of making connections between
our own culture and some exotic culture or historical period, or between our discipline and another discipline
which seems to pursue incommensurable aims in an incommensurable vocabulary (1980: 360).
Whereas for Sartre the 'Look' of the other leads to a strugglefor power in which each is attempting to posses the
other, for Levinas, the face of the other is the condition of philosophical thinking, for it is only in the experience of
this face that I can come to experience what is taken for granted from my framework. In the context of Sartre the
ego or the I wishes simply to preserve itself and to enhance its power. For Levinas the power of the I is given
only in being able to reach beyond itself. For Levinas it is only by reaching beyond itself that the ego can
overcome solitude and only by embracing the strangeness of existence can it locate itself in the context of
infinity. For Sartre the individual can never overcome itself but in the name of security is always attempting to
reduce existence to its own perspective. But, as Sartre himself contends, it can never be successful in this and
so human existence is condemned to be a 'useless passion'.
For Levinas, although the metaphysical desire is insatiable and thus although strangeness can not be overcome
and reduced to the same, through the embracing of the strange, the human being is continually 'deepened'
(1969:34).
It is not my intention to choose Sartre above Levinas or via versa but to point out that in the rupture of the familiar
experienced in the face and look of the other at least two possibilities exist: a struggle for power and the condition
of metaphysical and ethical being. Historical exemplification of both possibilities is found in South Africa where in
the context of apartheid whites responded in two different ways to the perceived 'darkness of Africa'. The vast
majority of whites sough to protect and defend themselves in the face of the experience of the black. Hence the
notion of apartheid. A small minority of whites, however, embraced the strangeness of the black and allowed
themselves to be deconstructed. Beyers Naude and Nico Smith are examples of the latter. For these figures
confronted what Nande refers to as the 'eye of the storm' and rather than fleeing into the insularity of the
familiarity of their own, they questioned themselves in the context of the face of the African. For both this was an
edifying experience; one which enabled them to experience the world differently.
It could, however, be pointed out that an advantage that Levinas has over Sartre is that Levinas is able to think
the Sartrian possibility whereas Sartre gives no evidence of thinking the Levinasian possibility. It is important to
note that Levinas is not naevi concerning the play of power. Rather he appreciates the limits and futility of the
drive for power. For no matter how much power I have I cannot capture the face of the other. As Levinas says of
the Other: 'He escapes my grasp by an essential dimension, even if I have him at my disposal' (1985:39). Power
is unable to extend itself to the Otherness of the other. For Levinas, no matter how much power I or the Other
have, there is no way in which the otherness of the Other can be overcome. No matter how much military,
economic or psychological power I have over the other, the drive for power cannot overcome the anxiety of the
strangeness of human existence. Exemplary of this is the white government of apartheid South Africa. No matter
how much power this government had over the black people of South Africa, it was continually haunted by a fear
of these people.
Metaphysics while not overcoming Otherness and strangeness embraces it and turns it into an edifying
experience. What Levinas is calling us to do is to re-evaluate our attitude to what is strange and unfamiliar: the
strange and unfamiliar is not only frightening, it is also edifying. It not only threatens the security of our already
established world but opens up new ways of seeing the world. The strange is simultaneously repellent and
attractive. Rather than overpowering the other, we need to overcome our fear of otherness. If we can embrace
the fear of the Strange we shall not see the Other as simply a threat to our position but shall find in the encounter
with the other an existential pedagogical opportunity.
It is interesting to contrast the activity of what Levinas calls the metaphysician (that is, he who is concerned with
the Other) with the activity of a scientist: for Kuhn in a time of normal science, the scientist is engaged in the
activity of problem solving. He is concerned with clarifying theoretical assumptions, with verifying or falsifying
hypotheses. The metaphysician, on the other hand, is in no sense of the word concerned with the activity of
proving. Rather he is learning how to adapt to what is strange and unfamiliar. He is not concerned with building
and fortifying a system, for he believes that this will alienate him from the Other. Furthermore his primary bond
with the other is not a bond of knowledge, not a bond of commensurability but one of concern and consideration.
I hope to have shown that incommensurability is not a condition to refuse dialogue but is in fact a condition upon
which to enter a metalogue, a dialogue about the taken for granted paradigms in which we experience the world.
I do not underestimate the anxiety that goes into such an undertaking. Hence I do not wish to under-emphasise
the logic of the Sartrian option. Difference of culture, custom, history, gender and sexual identity are not
conditions upon which to refuse culture but conditions in which to enter a metalogue, a conversation about the
paradigms in which we make sense of the world. This kind of conversation we cannot have while we are
absorbed in our own paradigm. Members of different paradigms challenge us in ways that no member of our own
paradigm can. They can make us see dimensions of our beliefs in a way that no one else can. If philosophy is
that activity in which we question our taken for granted paradigms and if philosophy is undertaken in a dialogue,
then it is through a dialogicaly based philosophy that we can respond to cross cultural tension and difference in a
proactive and edifying way.
To enter into a dialogue means not that the partners to the dialogue agree with one another - there would be no
need for the dialogue if this were the case but that they are prepared to listen to each other. Listening to each
other is not simply absorbing as information what the other says, but is a matter of being questioned in one's
being by the other. In the situation of dialogue, to listen to the other does not mean simply to be able to comment
on what the other says - as, for example, the psychoanalyst does - but to be challenged to respond from one's
own point of view. To listen means not only that the other's point of view is in question but that one's own
perspective is at stake as well. In the situation of dialogue the values, theoretical and metaphysical assumptions
of both sides are open to question: I question the other in terms of my assumptions: he is questioned by my
assumptions. He questions me in terms of his assumptions; I am questioned by his assumptions.
Note
1. Although I shall not develop it in this paper, I am not arguing for an obliteration of difference through dialogue
but would rather argue for a Levinasian position which affirms that we are always simultaneously the same and
other.
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