Studies in Practical Philosophy, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2003

Here I Am by the Grace of theOther and Politics Is in Disgrace:Levinas and Postcolonialism

ROSALYN DIPROSE

School of Philosophy, University of New South Wales

Here I am. There are -raindrops on your hair. Your "body is clear, sirnple,

in its Ivay perfect. " I stare. Here I aln, given over to you in d,esire, trans­

ported beyond myself. Here I am, "frankly ravished" (Coetzee 1999,12).I calTY you to the bed-room, kiss yourfeet, "astonished by the feeling [youlevoke" (Coetzee 1999, 25). A simple case of innocent desire ? On the con­

trary. Here I am, the central cha-racter inJ M. Coetzee's novel Disgrace:David Lurie, aged 52, an aCade1rlic specializing in romantic literature,

in post-apartheid South Ajlica, failing Lo keep pace Ivith the impact ofeconornic rationalism on the fabric of the university, divorced, philan­derer, besotted Ivith Melanie, my 20 year old student. "She does not resist.All she does is aveTt herself; avert her lips, avert her eyes. ... Not rape,not quite that, but undesiTed nevertheless ... As though she had decidedto go slack, die lvithin herselffor the duration. " (25)

David in his self-delusion, will forget this iIlSight about the deathhe caused by the time he is brought before the ulliversity's disci­plinary committee 011. charges ofvictimization and harassme11t. Hewill neither hear Ilor defend hirnself against the details of thecharges, suspecting that they were made ullder pressure from her'Jealous boyfriend" and "indignallt parellts" (Coetzee 1999, 45).He accepts his guilt but without remorse, wrapping hirnself, withthe help of Byron, iIl a romaIltic image of his relationship withMelanie. DescribiIlg hirnself as a recalcitrant "servant of Eros"within whom "somethillg generous ... was doillg its best to flower"(89), arld feeliIlg like a dog who would rather be shot tha11 "acceptthe justice of beillg PUllished for following its illstincts" (90),David leaves the University of Cape TOWIl iIl disgrace. More dis­turbing than David's self-delusioll and dellial of the other is thedifficulty the reader has itI simply condemning hirn, IlOt so much

Here I Am by the Grace 0/ the Other and Politics Is in Disgrace 23

because we believe his own image of hirnself as a romantic victimof circumstance. Tllat just serves to fuel the reader's frustratioll athis blilldness alld iIlaction regarding his disgrace. What saves hirnfrom the reader's hasty judgment is the impossibility of siding witha panel of self-servillg, and largely iIldifferent, academics who sealhis fate. More important we withhold condemnation of David iIIdeference to Melanie, in deference to any judgmellt of the situa­tion she may hold and that we urge her to make. But, from alld ofthe other who seemed to inspire David's desire alld his fall fromgrace, we hear and know nothing, save that which is mediated bythe men who surround her.

David's sexual possession and silellcing of Melallie, as weIl as theimpossibility of passing filIal jlldgment on hirn, sets the scene for anextraordinary and disturbillg fictional exploration of the possibilityof justice in postapartheid South Mrica. While Disgrace opens withthe issue of sexual harassment, the novel leads us on to consider, aswe follow a white colonist's fall from grace, not Oilly the possibilityofjustice with regards to sexual difference, but also with respect tocultural and species difference. David's journey raises the questionof how to be good in these difficult times of decolollization, how toelevate a multiplicity of differences above the ruiIls of colonization,how to bear a fall from privilege with geIlerosity, how to act for ajus­tice that is probably impossible alld that is certaillly not here, how toact for a future beyond ones own time. What interests me in partic­ular about Disgrace is the way David's journey, by focusing 011 thecomplexities of interpersonal relations (their affective basis aIld tlleidiosyncratic histories of the players), POilltS to how objective judg­meIlt in the service of a grand postcolonial politics may be inappro­priate to these questiollS. From the openiIlg ellcounter betweellDavid and Melallie, there is a tension between the interpersonal andthe political, between what David sees as his iIlstillctual desire andgenerosity toward the other, on the one halId, and, Oll the other, thepolitics of both llis actions (given his privileged position iIl terms ofsex, profession, and race) and the judgment of a third party; a poli­tics that would close off that generosity as weIl as the other's differ­ence. This tellsion is reminisceilt of the distiIlction in EmmanuelLeviIlas's philosophy betweell tlle ullconditional giviIIg to the othercharacteristic of etllical sensibility, alld politics tllat effects an onto­logical closure to the other. Without assuming I can do justice to tlle

24 Rnsalyn Diprose

complexities of Coetzee's llovel, this paper explores that distillCtiol1in the context of considerillg the possibility of justice in this post­colonial era.

Here I am. Not by my own doing, but by the grace of the Other.The grace of the Other or the "Glory of the Illfillite" as Levinas hasput it, the "iIIterval ofdifference" (1981,141), the alterity that isnever present "save through the trace of its reclusioll, as the faceof a lleighbor" (140). This grace of the Other is IIOt a God abovethe other llor a cultural orllament, a charmiIIg action, attitude orexpression that the other 'has' aIId that I COllld know. The grace ofthe Other is the alterity sigIlified in the nakedl1ess of her face alldirreducible to what I make of her through my perceptions, judg­ments alld knowledge; a surplus that breaks through his or herform (Levinas 1987, 96); the irreducible ditlereIlce that orders meto the other, that attracts, animates, that favors me, that says "thoushalt not kill," that accuses me in my egoism alld of the ilnperial­ism and negation of difference this implies, but that also grants adelay in penalty, that generates, sallctifies and endows me with re­SpOIISibility, goodness, and subjectivity. While the grace of theother is never present save through a withdrawal signified ill thenakedness of her face, it also "becomes present oftly in my OWIIvoice" (Levinas 1981, 140). AIId so here I am, nOIIindifference tothat differellce, disturbed by that alterity, a welcome of aIId operl­ness toward the other. Here I am, in the accusative alld inspired;and "this inspiration is the psyche" (114). But not a psyche re­ducible to consciousness of an ego closed irl on and at home withitself. On the cOlltrary, here I am out of phase with myself, as sell­sibility, affectivity, saying, allimated corporeality open by, to alldfor the other. A11d here I am, ullique as all unconditiollal respoIlseto and in my responsibility for the other by whose grace I amelected (126-27). The grace of the Other is the source of subjec­tivity and subjectivity, as sincerity, is respollsibility for the other, ananimated body that bears witlless to alterity as "having-the-other-in­one's-skin" (115). Without choice alld prior to any world, subjec­tivity is the trace of alterity that commands me to give to the otherby "taking the bread out of my own mouth" and by "making a giftof my own skin" without reserve or thought of return (138). It isthe other's indeterminate difference that gets me gOil1g and Iwould give my all for them.

Here I Am by the Graee 0/ the Other and Polities Is in Disgrace 25

Levinas thus founds subjectivity on carllal sensibility provoked bythe other's irreducible difference. This is a rare and welcome moveill philosophy, COIlsistent with a postcolollial ethics of differencethat would base subjectivity on an intersubjectivity that remains sen­sitive and open to otherlless. Also consisteIlt with an ethics of dif­ference is Levinas's explanation of effacemellt of difference illterms ofjudgment, representation, aIld objectification of the other.For hirn, the nonindifference to difference, the responsibility ofone-for-the-other, the giviIl'g to the other illspired by the grace of theOther, the sincerity of "here I am," is the passivity of exposure tllatis prior to consciousness, to action, volitioll, knowledge, and judg­mellt that would cover my exposure with words and wrap the otherup in my terms. "Sincerity would be sayillg without the said," as Lev­inas puts it (1981, 143). SiIlcerity or sayiIIg, the affective openlless tothe other of the here I am, is the eondition of the production ofmeaning, representation, objectification, and knowledge. Meaning,the said, arises through this saying of sincere subjectivity, through this"orientation ... a leap, an outside-of-oneself toward the other thanoneself" (LeviIlas 1987,90). But, in the perception, represelltationalld judgment of the other that may result, the subject wouldreestablish itself as an entity ill response to the other, gather theother into the Same (thus absorbillg the difference), recover fromany disruption the grace of the Other provokes, alld secure itself iIlthe present of the said, the thought or the deed (Levinas 1981,28-29). We cOllld say then, following Levinas, that "something gen­erous ... was doing its best to flower" in David Lurie's opellness tothe grace ofthe Other bllt that the acts, words,judgmellts, thoughts,alld deeds that flowed from this served Ollly to kill off the other's dif­ference and return hirn to hirnself uIlchallged. This recovering ofhirnself [rom the rupture of exposllre inspired by the grace of theOther, his recalcitrant possession ofMelaIlie, is the source ofDavid'sdisgrace.

Levinas's formulation of the relation between the saying and thesaid suggests that to the extent that David settles on a mealling alldposition in relation to the other, having tied her up in his (sexedand cultllral) terms, he has betrayed the responsibility of here-I­am-for-the-other, he has become indifferellt to difference and hastherefore falleIl froln grace. I am in disgrace illsofar as the mean­ing of tlle sensible content of my perception andjudgmellt of the

26 Rosalyn DipTose

other presupposes all agreement betweell the other alld me. Here,at the level of ontology, iIltersubjectivity (as lllovement toward theother) accomplishes community by establishing commOll groulldbetweell differellt bodies such that they belollg to one social bodyof shared meaning and kllowledge. And so I am iIl disgrace inso­far as my perception of the other's difference subsurnes what is for­eign ullder (sexed or other) terlllS already established ill my OWllsocial body (Levinas 1994, 100). This closure to the other, for ex­ample, would be a conseqllellce of Merleall-Pollty's ontology, ac­cording to Levinas. 1

But this formulation of disgrace poses the questioIl: at wllat pointdoes unconditional respollsibility, sincerity, exposure to the otherwithout reserve, give way to objectification and self-possession alldthe disfiguring of grace, the effacement of alterity, alld the fallingfrom favor this implies? Is the here-I-am-one-for-the-other at somepoint without disgrace? Tllere is implied at times iIl Levinas's for­mulatioll of sincerity something like David Lurie's romallticislllwhere I could be said to be given to the other without intention,choice, or burden of culturally bound perceptioIlS. This suggests alevel of intersubjectivity where I could deny any damage to alteritythat may result from my relatioll with the other. As if subjectivity,eveII as seIIsibility or earllaI affective openness to the other, couldever be innocent, unconditional, and free from cultural baggageand from the reduction of difference this implies. Or, is it the casethat, if here-I-am by the grace of the Other, I am also always iIl themidst of cultural perceptiollS with their traces of sexed alld ethllicpositions? And therefore am I not also always in disgrace?

Perhaps not. Perllaps someOl1.e less self-serviIlg would fare betterthan David ill responding to the grace of the Other. Indeed, there ismuch to suggest this iII the novel Disgrace. While it is Ilot from Melalliethat David learlls the primacy of the other, the meaning of his own dis­grace and the possibility of welcoming alld giving to the other withoutnegating the iIlterval of differellce, he does receive a clue from hisdaughter Lucy. It is to Lucy's farm that David retreats ill order to re­cover hirnself in the wake of his disgrace. Lucy's teachiIlg of alterity

1. Levinas levels this charge against Merleau-Ponty's ontological model of inter­subjectivity which he argues would always subsunle the other's difference under theperceiving body's perceptions (Levinas 1994).

Here I Am by the Grace of the Other and Politics Is in Disgrace 27

comes, not illitially in terlllS ofbeing open to sexual difference, but interms ofa more ge11eral cultural difference where Lucy's gellerosity to­ward Petrus would turll hirn from a slave of apartheid hItO a neighbor.

Here I am. Through the sweat on our skin, the dirt under our nails, andthe sinews in our hands, l.ve work this land together: You are my neighbor:But that neighborhood and the cultural works it generates is not a productof what we have in common. Through and beyond the blackness ofyour facethere is the expression of a different South Africa, an alterity that would belost in (English) words (Coetzee 1999, 117). Here I am but only through bro­ken English, through the grace of that altenty and its onelor-the-other,through the sensibility that inspires the gift of (my) land, of my (white) wayof life and of my own skin. Here I am, Lucy for Pet'rus, in post-apartheidSouth Africa, near Grahamstown, the fron tier ofBritish colonialism, tryingas hard as I can to remain open to another fron tier, to make good the debt tothe other that land my culture have incurred, to open my land, culture andskin to another way of life, and to be good in difficult tirnes.

Compared to David's, Lucy's politics of differellce would seem im­peccable. She is, I am, responsibility for the other. Or so it would seem.

However, Levinas would say that the generosity of exposure tothe other is 110t to be found ill Lucy's politics, IIOt in her gifts ofland, clilture, or skin, but iIl the sensibility, the ullconditioIlal opell­11ess by the grace of the Other, that illspires these gifts. He wouldsay that iI1sofar as her gifts of land, culture, a11d skin are consciousacts that would settle the debt to the other, they, 110 less thanDavid's possessioll of Melanie, wOllld effect an. ontological closureto the other and the disgrace this involves. Here I am, 110t by choiceor by virtue of my volition, but by the grace of the Other. As "a fis­SiOl1 of the ultimate substantiality of the ego, sincerity is not re­ducible to allything ontic, or a11ythillg ontological, and leads as itwere beyond or this side of everything positive, every positioll. It isnot an act or a movement, or any sort of cultural gesture" (Levinas1981, 144). For LeviI1as, onIy by ullderstanding "intersubjectivity"in these terms of abolId lyillg in "the non-indifferellce of personstoward one another" "beyolld beillg" (beyolld politics as weIl as 011­tology) can we conceive of a sociality that "does llot absorb the dif­ference" (1994, 103).

Politics does IIOt extend to this inaugural momellt of sociality, ac­cording to Levillas, at least not at first glance. This sociality is with­out politics because, as Levinas has argued iI1 Otherwise than Being,

28 Rosalyn Diprose

it is without problems alld it is withollt problems because it is with­out decision or judgment abollt differences (1981, 161). Politics,understood as the orgal1izatioll of society for the improvemellt ofthe human survival (Levinas 1986, 29), presllpposes judgment, de­cision, alld kll0wledge; judgment about what is good for one's sur­vival alld knowledge of the other, of the differellce betweell anenemy alld a friend, and of the difference between the source ofharm alld good.2 Thatjudgment, decision, and kll0wledge involveconsciousness, and that COllsciousness iI1volves reductioll to theSame and ontological closure to the other is why Levinas distin­guishes politics from the ethical relatioll to the other and thereforefrom the responsibility of exposure to alterity (LeviIlas 1986, 29;1969, 64). There are no decisions or judgments in the here-I-anl­011e-for-the-other, because the alterity that commallds me to theother does 110t appear iI1 the other as a cultural gesture (there is nosignificant gesture by whicll comparisons and judgments could bemade) alld the generosity of my response is 11either a cultural ges­ture nor an act based Oll a decisioll or judgment I Inake (Levinas1981, 140, 144). The gellerosity of exposure is a having bee11 givento the other, "not the gellerosity of offeril1g olleself, which would bean act" (75); this sociality of the llere I am olle-for-the-other is priorto allY decisioll, jlldgment, alld every (political, moral, and social)position (144) al1d this sociality precedes the empirical order of thestate (116).

But can this be right? Is 110t the self-sacrifice of here-I-am-for-the­other already unconditiollally distributed inequitably by the polit­ical, moral, and social order, making saints out of women andmute servants out of COl011ized peoples by assumillg a duty of allopellness to others not expected of some men? Levinas's separa­tion of politics and ontology from ethics, the said from the sayit1g,implies that the said of language, the meaning that orgallizes thesocial alld constitutes our experience itl commOll, comes after,may be inspired alld i11terrupted by, the affectivity arId sensibilityof the here-I-am, but that the said of language does not iIlformthat sensibility. While explaining the ethical aIld affective basis of

2. Derrida diseusses the way Schnlitt's eoneept of the politieal, for example, isbased on kno\ving the differenee between the enenlY and the friend and points tothe irnpossibility of deternlining the differenee (Derrida 1997, eh. 5).

Here I Am lJy the Graee 0/ the Other and Polities Is in Disgrace 29

sociality, the potential problem with separating the 1111conditionalhere-I-am-for-the-other from ontology and politics is that who theother is al1d what he or slle has dOlle (as a corporeal expression ofa culture) makes no difference to my responsibility for and opeIl­lless to hirn or her. And it would make every decision, actioll, andjudgment I make, alld every word I utter in response to the other,equally a disgrace; it is equally a betrayal of exposure to the otherthat precedes it and is its condition, al1d it is equallya closure to theother who provokes it. Just as David's possession of Melanie alld hisself-serviIlg delusions betray his exposure to tlle grace of the other,so do Lucy's generous acts risk betraying the uncollditioIlal re­sponsibility arisiIlg from her exposure to those with whom she hasnothiIlg iIl common. And indeed, while I-Jucy does 110t seek grati­tude from Petrus in returll for her gifts, she does view these giftsas the price for staying on in postapartheid South Mrica. A post­colonial politics, born of grace, is also iIl disgrace, iIlsofar as it isbased on culturally irlformed perceptions and judgmel1ts of theother and his or her needs that would absorb this difference a11diIlsofar as it seeks comperlsation a11d self-affirmatioll for the workit does iIl attempting to meet those needs.

But if sensibility and its ethical relation is really outside of ontol­ogy and therefore the cultural-historical-political dimensioll of per­ception, what are we to make ofLevinas's claim that the other's "in­eradicable differellce," is not just "signified ill the 11akedness of theface" hut also in "the expressivity of the other person's whole sensi­ble being" (1994, 102)? This expressivity belollgs to the ontologicalexpression of Cllltllral worlds hy a perceiving and perceived body.Hence, this expressivity belollgs to the politics and ontology that theethical relation is said to inaugurate alld exceed. And if the etl1icalrelation is really outside ofpolitics, what are we to make ofLevinas'sclaims that justice (involving concern for all others, consciousness,comparison, coexistence, thematization, etc.) "is ShOWll from thefirst" in the ethical relation (1981, 159) alld that "there is a questionof the said and heing only because saying or respol1sibility requirejustice" (1981, 45)? Justice is always called for in the ethical rela­tiOIl because, accordillg to LeviI1as, COllscious judgmel1t, percep­tion, and comparisorl are there from the first in that the other whoinspires and accuses me is in relation to a "third party," to otherothers to whom they are respol1sible and who treat me, alongside

30 Rosalyn Diprose

the other I face, as someOlle to be cOllcerIled about and welcomed(Levillas 1981, 161).3 The llere I am olle-for-the-other always alsorefers to other social beillgs alld so is mediated by the political, by theorganizatioll of society for the improvemeilt of the human survivaland so by the need for reflectioll, comparisoll, and COllscious judg­ment.4

While Levillas thus acknowledges that the inaugural momellt ofsociality is perhaps iIlseparable from politics and justice, he also de­persollalizes politics by assunlillg it operates only through gralldthemes and through COIlscious decisions and judgmellts. He doesnot seem to grant that the political is persollaI alld that perhapspolitics is also illseparable from sellsibility, from the prereflectivedispersed openllcss to the other by whose grace here I am. Thatpolitics, the olltico-ontological, the cultural, is there from the firstiIl the ethical relatioll, saturating sensibility, is best demonstrated inwhat is arguably the pivotal momellt of Disgrace: Lucy's rape (Coet­zee 1999,92-98).

Here I am. You, strangers, enter my home, touch my skin, open my soul.Through and beyond the blackness ofyourface there is the expressio'n ofa different South Africa, an alterity that would be lost in (English) words. Here Iam but only through broken English, through the grace of that alterity andits one-for-the-other, through the sensibility that inspires the gijt 0/ (my) land,of my (white) way of life and of my own skin. But with that grace I feel onlyyour hatred. So personal yet so little to do with me. Trapped, held down, yourweight smothers. Something dies, is murdered, "leaving the body behind cov­ered in blood" (Coetzee 1999, 158). Here I am, Lucy, but am I uncondi­tionally for these strangers? Here I am, face blank, carrying the responsibil­ity for the history of white colonialism in the form of a child. Raped by "debtcollectors, " by men who "do rape" (158), not out ofevil, but in the service ofan exchange system lvhich, while put in place by the colonizers, now works to­ward aredistribution ofgoods, a taking back, a giving back, of "cars, shoes;women too" (98).

That, says Lucy, is the price for stayillg Oll. The price the coloniz­ers must pay for decolonizatioll it would seem is not all uncolldi-

3. For detailed discussions of the "third party" and justice regarding the ethicalrelation see, for example, Bernasconi (1999), Chanter (1995), Thomas (1999), andZiarek (2001).

4. Simon Critchley provides a convincing argunlent toward this clainl (1992,219-36).

Here I Am by the Grace ofthe Other and Politics Is in Disgrace 31

tional being given to the other, but aredistribution of goods borrl ofa sensibility cOlltaminated with llate arId with the very idea of ex­change UPOl1 which colonization proceeds. ArId in order to stay onher land in postapartheid South Mrica she will withhold judgmentof her rapists and slle will "marry" Petrus in exchange for his pro­tection.

Without denying that sellsibility rather than words, COlIscious judg­mCllt, 01' krIowledge expresses the one-for-tlle-other of the ethical re­lation, and without denyillg that this sociality of IIonil1differelIce todifference is inspired by alterity that is 110t absorbed withhl it, at nopoint can it be said that the relation to the other is free from percep­tion of the other, from history, 01' from the cultllrally bound meaningthese imply. Nor is the grace of the other pure 01' without those cul­tu.ral ornaments that irIform the other's sensibility, his 01' her actions,ju<lgments, alld perceptions as weIl as my perceptioll of him 01' her.LevirIas does acknowledge the iI1separability of the saying alld thesaid. The grace of the other, for example, is the surplus that breaksthrough his/her form, but only "in the midst of the production of itsform" (Levil1as 1987,96). That is, the other's irreducible differenceon.ly breaks through in the midst of the productioll of form throllghwords, acts, perceptions, and their meanings. Lucy's others, whetherstrangers 01' neighbors, are never without that cultural productionthat alterity breaks through. Hence Lucy's relations to these others isnever without problems; never without the political alld 011tological;never without the history of colonialism that call tUfll sellsibility into

llate, decolonizatiol1 irlto taking back, alld grace hItO disgrace; al1dnever without sexual differellce (after all, these strangers did 110t rapeDavid who was there for the taking). Giving 01' taking, passivity 01' ac­tivity, grace 01' disgrace: whatever Levinas says, the limit between thetwo, betweel1 ethics alld politics, is, as Derrida argues, llever pure.5

If justice is called for from the first in the sensibility of the eth­ical relation tllis is because other others are there from the first,not simply by virtue of COllscious judgment al1d comparison withreference to tllemes for the just organization of society (to whichLevinas reduces justice and politics), but also in the expressivity ofthe other person 's whole serlsible beillg, that is in the ontological

5. See Derrida's discussion of this point in Adieu to Em1nanuel Levinas (1999, 99in particular).

32 Rosalyn DipTose

expressiol1 of cultural-political-historical worlds that is illsepara­ble from the nonindifference to differeIlce of sensibility. What Iam suggesting here is that the here-I-am-one-for-the-other is neveruncollditional al1d that there is no moment of affective dispersedsubjectivity for-the-other that lies outside of ontology, politics, orculture. It matters that David is white, aged fifty-two, a divorcedphilanderer, all academic specializing in romantic literature inpostapartheid South Mrica, and failillg to keep pace with the im­pact of economic ratiollalism Oll the fabric of the university, notSO much for allY judgment by a third party of his perceptioll ofand actions toward Melanie, but in terms of how these features ofthe ontico-ontological would necessarily inform the sellsibility ofthose actiollS (albeit in illdeterminate ways). To claim that sensi­bility is already political, however, is 110t to suggest that alterity isdoomed to absorptioll withill existing meal1ings held by the bod­ies and positions that dominate our cultures. On the contrary,there is a way to understal1d intersubjectivity in terms of a sellsi­bility saturated with politics alld cultural meanings without aban­doning Levillas's importal1t illSight that it is by the grace of theother~s irreducible differellce that 1 am here for the other. Oneway to such all understandillg is via Merleau-Ponty's ontology, inwhich call be fOUIld a sensitivity to alterity that Levinas's critiquesof Merleau-Ponty overlook.

Merleau-Ponty, like Levillas, suggests that subjectivity as sensibilityis animated by the other but, uillike Levillas, this sellsibility is insep­arable from perception, action, alld the cultural meanings thesecarry.6 Yet, for Merleau-Po11ty, perception, judgment, and action,understood as sensibility, are not reducible to reflexive conscious­ness. Arlimated by the other, perception (sellsibility, subjectivity) iscorporeal and prereflective and happens without choice, decisiol1,or thought. But because sellsibility is iI1separable from the act, theperception alld so from prereflexive 'Judgment," sellsibility, likeC011Sciollsness, is in disgrace. For Merleau-Ponty, to the extent thatsel1sibility subsumes the world alld the other under familiar termsthat may override the differellce, this is the effect of corporeal habitand an accompaIlying sedimentation of culturally informed meall-

6. For a more detailed conlparison of Levinas and Merleau-Ponty on this and thepoints that follow see Diprose (forthconling).

Here I Am by the Grace ofthe Other and Politics Is in Disgrace 33

iIlg, the kind of recalcitrance that David Lurie displays so weIl to thedetrimellt of those around hirn. But because sensibility is opened byand to the body of the other, meaning, and the culture it supports,is always ambiguous, iIldeterminate, and open to transformation.But tllis transformation and its disrllption of meaniIlg alld the cul­ture it supports occurs lvithin sensibility, within the perceptioll, act orgesture. As Merleau-Pollty puts it:

If the other person is really another, at a certain stage I must be sur­prised, disorientated. Ifwe are to meet notjust through what we havein common but in what is different between us [this] presupposes atransformation of myself and of the other as weIl. (Merleau-Ponty1973,142)

Merleau-Ponty also suggests iIl the same passage, aIld problemati­cally, that, iIl this trallsformatioll of meaIliIlg and beiIlg in responseto the other's iIldeterminate differellce, "our differellces can no10Jlger be opaque qualities. Tllcy must become mealliIlg" if tlleother's indetermiIlate difference that surprises, disorielltates and soanimates perception is 110t to be dismissed as nOllsense. The issue isto what extent this becoming mealling alld the transformations in­volved is a totaliziIlg event that sul)sumes the grace of the Otherunder the social meaIlings that inhabit the bodies which domiIlateour culture. One thread of Merleau-Ponty's thiIlking here suggeststhat iIl order for the other's difference to aniInate alld transformperception without heilIg absorbed iIl the process, it demands thatthose domiIlallt meaniIlgs must give way: the animatioll of percep­tion and trallsformatioIl of mealliIlg by the grace of the Otller restson allowing olleself to "be lead by the flow" of the other's discourse,"especially at the momellt he withdraws froln us and threatens to falliIlto non-sense," so that what does not fall so easily under familiarterms is capable of transforming us iIltO the other and opelling "usto all0ther meaIliIlg" (1973, 143).111 this way Merleau-Ponty makessensibility political alld the political personal. While he also assurnes(problematically alld as Levillas suggests) a kiIld of commuIlion be­tween differeIlt bodies as an ideal endpoint to this illtercorporeal re­lation, it is still the other's difference that inspires that attempt atcommullion. This difference callnot be absorbed in the process. InMerleau-Ponty's OWIl terms, this disturbing "spolltaneous" operationof speech (what Levillas might call the "saying" of lallguage), "thefirst 'human' sigllification ... sllrpasses our commOll prehistory

34 Rosalyn Diprose

evell though prolollging its movement" (Merleau-Ponty 1973, 141);this spontaneous power (which is "not a god") "pulls significatioIlsfrom us," "destroys the gellerality ofthe species and brings [mall] toadmit others into his deepest singularity" (146).

Admitting others itltO her deepest sitlgularity, beillg "led by theflow" of the other's discourse, is what characterizes the generosity ofLucy's sensibility, at least ill relatioll to Petrus. But her giviIlg, alli­mated by cultural difference, alld the transformatiolls of meaning,being, and culture it effects is IlOt alld could Ilever be sitlcere or un­COllditional. She will always be, to a certain extent, iIl disgrace. Notbecause she withholds herself ill amomeIlt of conscious judgmeIltitl deference to a gralld politics (as Levillas might have it), but be­cause, before this, her sellsibility is inseparable from perceptioIISand judgments that carry the history of her culture alld that, tosome extent, prolong its movemellt alollg with its assumptions ofcommOlllless with others. At the same time however, her giving toPetrus indicates a sensitivity to the grace of the Other, allowing thedisorientation effected by this trace of alterity to surpass any as­sumed commOll prehistory and so to transform mealling, her beillg,and culture itl the illterests of decolollizatioll. Admitting that sensi­bility, nonindifference to difference, is political and therefore thatthe political is personal is to adlnit, alollg with Levinas, that there isthe risk of disgrace ill the act of absorbing the other's differellce inevery perceptioll, act, gesture, alld word directed toward and aboutthe other. Jllstice is impossible. But admittiIlg, alollg with Merleau­Ponty, that the political is personal and itlseparable from seIIsibilityalso allows that, while the here I am olle-for-tlle-other is never un­conditional alld that sincerity is itnpossible, some perceptions, acts,gestures, and words are more open to otherness than others. Itwould admit that Lucy's politics of differeIIce, in relation to herIleighbors, is arguably more constructive alld less disgraceful thanher father's or her rapists. That sensibility is iII disgrace and justiceis not passivity or retributioll but an action for a different future be­yond her own time.

But in case we are tempted to join the pallel of self-servillg, andlargely indifferellt academics who lord over David's disgrace, admit­ting that the political is persoIlaI and inseparable from sensibility isalso to allow that evell the most recalcitrant, self-servillg and iIldif­ferellt among us are opell to the grace of the Other. That David is

Here 1 Am by the Grace of the Other and Politics Is in Disgrace 35

more open to alterity alld less indifferent to differellce at the end ofhis jourlley than he was at the begiIlning is not maIlifest in either in­creased consciousness of the politics aIld ethics of difference 01' inpassive sincerity. While Lucy's rape remiI1ds hirn of his treatmeIlt ofMelaIlie, makiIlg this conIlection does 110t set hirn off OIltO a path ofenlightenment about the meaniIlg of disgrace. It leaves hirn indif­ferent and iIl despair, ashamed ofLucy's shame, and ashamed ofhisown iIlability to protect her. Nor does the apology he offersMelallie's parents shortly after Lucy's rape indicate he has more ofa clue about the grace of the Other thall he did before. Rather, thatDavid is opened through Lucy to the teachiIlg of the other is felt ...beyond 11is words, explicit ill thoughts and musings about the eventsand people around hirn. That he is beillg "led by the flow" of theother's discourse is IlIallifest at the level of sensibility and in the leastheroic alld least erotic places: iIl his iIlcreased affinity with alld re­spect for Bev and her work with broken and dyiIIg animals, the dregsof Mrica that no one wants; in his increased compassion for thoseanimals, especially the dogs, and in his work ill honoring theircorpses; and in his illability to write his operatic eulogy to Byron,finding iIlcreasillgly less inspiration ill Byron's romanticism thall inthe humiliatioIl of Teresa, ByrOll'S discarded mistress.

Here 1 am. David, not gathering myself as was my intention but "losing[myselj] day by day" (Coetzee 1999, 121). Here 1 am opened by andfor theother, "giving [myself} to the world" in the "service ofdead dogs" (146).

It is at the level of seIlsibility then, of nOIlindifferellce to differ­ence rather than at the level of understalldiI1g witll referellce to po­litical ideals, that David, inspired by the seIIsibilities of the women inhis life, is opened to the grace of the other. But this here I am one­for-the-other is not outside of acts, gestures, 01' deeds and the cul­tural meaIIings and politics this implies. His prereflexive living forthe other is a politics: a politics of species, sexual, alld cultural differ­ence. It is sobering to note however, that David's most generous andleast self-serviIlg act, the last alld perhaps most moving in the book,is tiIlged necessarily with disgrace. Despite a growing and deep af­fection for an unllamed and crippled dog in his care, David, recog­nizing that the dog's "period ofgrace is almost over" (Coetzee 1999,215), gives hirn up to death. This is hardly a big momellt in SouthMricall politics, nor is a giant step forward for cultural 01' sexual dif­ference. Alld it could be read as a commeIlt Oll the hopelessIless

36 Rosalyn Diprose

and impossibility of openiIlg South Mrica or even David to the goodlife at a time of decolonization. However, I think this closiIlg sceneis less a pessimistic footllote than a commeIlt on the paradox of sub-jectivity inspired hy the grace of the Other alld on the aporetic struc­ture of a politics of differellce. RecoglliziIlg that subjectivity as sell­sibility, inspired by the grace of the other, is illseparahle from theact, from politics, and so from the disgrace of doing damage to dif­ference is to acknowledge just how hard it is to he good in difficulttimes. It is to suggest that an ethico-politics of sexual, cultural, andspecies differellce in this postcolollial era is to be found, IlOt in theself-serviIlg collection of debts of Lucy's rapists, nor ill an expecta­tion of uncollditiollal self-sacrifice in the service of the other, hut inthe indetermillacy of geIlerous acts that lies somewhere ill hetween.That a politics born of the grace of alterity is Ilecessarily in disgraceis 110t an excuse for inactioll or passivity, nor is it a licellse for justi­fyillg the most disgraceful acts. On the contrary, to paraphraseJohnCaputo, this paradox Ull(lerscores a passionate politics and an im­patiellce for decolonizatioll emhodied ill acts that risk oneself 110Wfor a justice that is never here.7

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Caputo, John. 1997. DeconstTuction in a Nutshell. New York: Fordham Uni­versity Press.

Chanter, Tina. 1995. Ethics 0/Eros: lrigaray S RevJriting 0/ the Philosophers. NewYork: Routledge.

Coetzee,]. M. 1999. Disgr·ace. London: Secker & Warburg.Critchley, Simon. 1992. The Ethics 0/ Deconstruction: Derrida and Lellinas.

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7. Caputo makes a similar point about deconstruction in his excellent discussionof 'The Messianic: Waiting for the Future" (Caputo 1997). There he says, after not­ing that justice is never here, that '''undecidability' and differance do not imply de­cision and delay. On the contrary, they serve to underlie and expose postponenlent,to make the retardation ofjustice look bad, to make salient the urgency of decision.For deconstruction, if there is such a thing, is a passion, an impassioning, an impa­tience, for justice" (1997, 180).

Here I Am by the Grace ofthe Other and Politics Is in Disgrace 37

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Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1973. "Dialogue and the Perception of theOther." In The Prose 0/ the World. Translated by John O'Neill. Evanston:Northwestern University Press.

Thomas, Elizabeth. 1999. Em'manuel Levinas: Ethics, Justice and the Human

Beyond Being. Ph.D. Thesis. Department of Philosophy, University of Syd­ney.

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Politics 0/Radical DeHlocracy. Stanford: Stanford University Press.