Lessons for life from Habermas and Derrida | Afdrukken |
woensdag, 18 november 2015 19:39

Under the shadow of the terrifying events in Paris last week, I read about the interview that both Habermas and Derrida had with Borradori about Philosophy in times of terror. This dual interview, the other being with Habermas, took place in the aftermath of the Al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers.
Derrida thinks that it is difficult to make clear whether such a happening as in Paris is a genuine or major event. You never know for sure where an event begins and ends. Has it already roots in the past or does it foreshadow happening in the future?
As the reviewer David Reinhart stresses both Derrida and Habermas take a moral position when they ask “To whom or what am I responsible? “. But there is a “gap  between a time of response and a responsibility to time.” The last issue does imply that there will never be a definitive, concluding judgement of responsibility (outside time). Not for my own responsibility, nor for such atrocities as terrorist shooting and bombing, nor the bombing of IS in Syria by the allied forces.
Habermas thinks an essential point is: “the critical power to stop violence, without reproducing it in circles of new violence, can only dwell in the telos of mutual understanding and in our orientations towards this goal” (p.38 German version p.63)
In this very true statement, I miss the logical analysis, that even if this is an essential point in stopping violence, it might be necessary, but this does not conclude how it happens. It appears not a sufficient reason to explain, if something is necessary, to achieve a goal that is not in itself evident. We could also conclude that the lack of mutual understanding is just an explanation why violence still did not stop.
If I declare myself a humanist, this would include, that intentions toward mutual understanding should be in itself rewarding and as such in causa sui, it should provide in its own motivation.
The fact that mutual understanding does deliver us a series of advantages is not sufficient to explain why it happens. Even if it became part of our survival toolbox of evolution, due to blind selection, we could expect that evolution would offer us some drive or urge for mutual understanding.
Only if mutual understanding is in itself rewarding, or we do feel the intrinsic logic with which mutual understanding does deliver these advantages, it would offer a sufficient explanation. In both cases, mutual understanding has to be an autonomous order of the universe.
Where Derrida tries to think ethics as a possible or necessary regulatory idea, he makes three types of reserve. Reinhardt calls that in his review apocalyptic reserve. At first there is a wrestling between the possible in (infinite) future and the impossible in the present. Derrida does not explain further, but I would like to meditate on this somewhat more. Suppose we think about virtual possibilities in the infinite future. There are infinite possibilities available, as long as the future is infinite, of course. But suppose that my life ends, or – to take its apocalyptic e.g. eschatological seriously – when the end of times would arrive, then I presume of the infinite possibilities, lots of them are still not realized. Do they deserve to be called possibilities still then? And if not, should I call them possibilities just now, before the end of time does arrive? And if not, how could I discern real possibilities from not real possibilities as long as the day of Apocalyps did not arrive?
On the opposite Derrida sees the impossible. That is certainly an impossibility of the present. But I read in his statement a warning, that there is a range of impossibilities, that looks like to remain impossible in future too. As such this realm of the impossible is not the realm of the ideal, the virtual. As such it is very real, Derrida says. It offers hard boundaries of restriction and limitation.
This resembles the position Kripke takes in his famous treatise on modal logic: naming and necessity: We should not look for possibilities like with a telescope from another planet. We should take the possibilities in possible worlds that depart from a feasible shared common world.
What does this learn us about terrorism, apart from being patient as Derrida concludes? To rely on too idealistic ends like total equality of people is to rely on the impossible. And if we wait for a very, very, very special opportunity, we could be waiting for a faraway possibility, which could in the end be no possibility at all.
As a second reserve Derrida provides a kind of paradox. In order to be a regulatory idea, any actor has to step outside the law and rules and norms. As Derrida states, as long as we follow rules, we do not create new regulation, but follow the rules as an automaton. Isn’t this a real paradox? Can we really step outside rules, and deliver a contribution to (new) regulation?
What does this learn about terrorism? Perhaps that we have to step outside current international laws that turn our behaviour into automatic reproduction of our privileged dominance and power position, which would not offer any insight in the causes and prevention of terrorism.
The third reserve Derrida makes has to do with the indispensable imaginary realm. We cannot think without creating our language and our imaginations. And imaginations bear in themselves illusions and distortions. Lacan would call them fantasies and constructions. If we have to act in the real world, how can we rely on our awareness, thinking and thoughtful evaluation, if that is the locus of illusory imagination that separates us from reality itself?
Finally, what would this learn us about terrorism? Especially the mass-media has turned into an instrument of show-off for terrorists of IS. This is also the realm of the  imaginary and fright, but not the order of the real. If we try to influence terrorism, we should not rely simply on our imagination. We should at least try as hard as possible to achieve a kind of deconstruction that Derrida proposes. Though, we might also question the possibilities of deconstruction. This reminds me of Althusser who came to criticize Marxism as theoretical ……
But most of all we can revisit the question whether mutual understanding and open communication is rewarding in itself. In the same manner as love is able to bridge inequalities. But this does not prevent love to become ever victim of violence. …
This reminds me of Deleuze speaking about a flight-line as a deregulating process that will always accompany reality, even where power-relations are robust. This flightline might be also be connected with ‘the new’, where the really new will always escape the powerplay. Though, this does not mean that all the new that is important or valuable does survive.  This ‘new’ bears in it again the question whether the attacks in Paris are indeed a ‘new’ major event, changing the order in the world. The future will tell us some.


David Reinhart: review Philosophy in time(s) of terror.
Habermas & Derrida: Philosophie in Zeiten des Terrors, 2003 / 2006