Auschwitz is the proper name which summarizes the meaning of the word Extermination as “annihilation of the non-identical” – according to the Adorno’s keen definition. As German people were lacking in identity, they needed to invent the Totally-Other one, the Different one, – identifying this with the Hebrew – and this One must be suppressed, to let German people be entirely themselves; the German had to protect his body’s health, making it immune against every infection or contamination. Auschwitz’s history cannot go by, and this is because its name has shown the paradigm itself of the western thought as the thought of the Identical, intrinsically “allergic” to the diversity (Lévinas). Nowadays, in the Global Age, this paradigm is more fashionable than ever, revitalized by the crisis in the sedentary way of living, with its reassuring, well-defined boarders which are capable to fix identities and belongings. The need for belonging and for self-appropriation shows itself as obsession of identity, affecting both the individual and the communities, inclined to refuse and reject the possibility of inclusion of the Other, except for that of a pure assimilation, carrying immunizing plans to extremes. The dynamics of identity produce fear, hostility and violence; to interrupt their exacerbation only one way is possible: the one traced by Lévinas and Derrida, who considers the diversity as included in the identity since the beginning (“the Other in the Self”), and the subjectivity as a uniqueness that in its inner side is tormented by that Other it is asked to receive and accommodate on the outside just because, from the beginning, subjectivity is inhabited – made up of, indeed – by the Other in its inner side. It is necessary then, to switch from the paradigm of the hostility to that of hospitality, if we want to avoid the spectre of a conflict among civilizations, in national-sedentary communities and in inter-national relationships. This could be fulfilled through a homeopathic cure: only discovering the stranger inside everyone of us – the stranger we ourselves are – we will be able to welcome those strangers that, in ever greater numbers, are knocking at our doors.
Fear of the Other
- Dettagli
- Categoria principale: Before and Beyond Auschwitz Digital Brochure
- Categoria: Esclusione, identità e differenza - Abstracts
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