Customer Reviews

On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (Thinking in Action)

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After seeing the new documentary on Derrida(Nov. 2002) I decided to reconnect with this thinker whose work I studied with great vigor twelve years ago. Coming back to Derrida through On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness was both interesting and enjoyable. In these all too brief essays Derrida addresses two concerns of human rights. The first being the ideas of hospitality and refuge in the contemporary geo-political environment. The second, being the nature, meaning, and limits of forgiveness.
In on Cosmopolitanism he extends the existing call for "cities of refuge" while examining the rights of hospitality as they are(n't) currently allowed to refugees. these movements are part of Derrida's advocating for a new consideration of cosom-politics.
When addressing forgiveness, Derrida argues against the economy of forgiveness that is created whenever forgiveness is called for, insisted upon, or deployed as a way of re-establishing normalcy. That is when the concept is used by a system of political / spiritual exchange. Derrida argues very well that the only things that can be forgiven are those considered unforgivable, and that the right to forgive is owned by specific individuals.
Back in the 1970's and 80s one of the most common attacks launched against post-structural thought in general, and deconstruction in particular was that it lacked political utility, or worse, was apolitical, or even worse, was politically regressive. Many of us at the time felt that such criticisms were both over stated and ill-informed. A book such as this leaves no doubt that post-structural thought and methods are relevant and helpful to progressive politics.
If you are new to Derrida and want to experience deconstruction this is not the book. Derrida's method here is well structured and worth examining, but, it is clearly not an example of the explorations he has undergone elsewhere to examine those elements "always already" present within philosophical texts that undermine in unusual and interesting ways both what and how we understand said texts to mean.

As Derrida points out, the two virtues of hospitality and forgiveness belong to the Abrahamic tradition common to Jews, Christians and Moslems. They were defined and codified at a time when nation-states didn't exist, and point toward forms of solidarity that are both archaic and highly modern, in the sense that they help us expand our legal and political horizon.

Granting hospitality or giving forgiveness are what linguists call speech acts, when enunciation creates its own performance and engages the speaker through the strength of the given word. One would need to establish fine-grained distinctions between the related notions of hospitality, asylum, refuge, sanctuary, safe haven, tolerance, openness, or within the even richer field of words connected to forgiveness: pardon, clemency, grace, acquittal, amnesty, reconciliation, excuse, exemption, prescription, repentance, apology, self-accusation, confession, etc. These are not only linguistic distinctions: differences in legal status and socio-economic conditions between asylum-seekers, refugees, immigrants, foreigners, deported, heimatlosen, stateless or displaced persons have very real consequences.

Derrida identifies a contradiction or a double imperative contained in these two notions, a tension that leads to unanswerable questions. Forgiveness presupposes a call for pardon, but usually the worst offenders don't ask for forgiveness and manifest no repentance: can one forgive the guilty as guilty? And if true forgiveness consists in forgiving the unforgivable, what does forgiveness forgive if the unforgivable is forgiven? Likewise, the concept of hospitality points toward a right of refuge that should be granted unconditionally to all foreigners; but all political organizations, be they the modern nation-states or the cities of refuge of the ancient Jews, impose limitations on the rights of residence.

Hospitality and forgiveness therefore exhibit a tension between the conditional and the unconditional, the calculus of politics and the imperative of ethics. One should not try to solve this contradiction or reconcile those two poles: inflections in politics and international law, such as the notion of crime against humanity or the French law that makes such crimes imprescriptible, usually stem from this tension between the two orders of injunctions.

Another point common to these two notions is that they belong to a 'politics of friendship', they create a personal bind between individuals or communities that can sometimes contradict the rules of citizenship and sovereignty imposed by the nation-state. Derrida's first lecture before the International Parliament of Writers occurred at a time when the tightening of laws against foreigners without rights of residence, the so-called 'sans papiers', generated mass protests in Paris. In a bold move, Derrida reconnects with the philosophical tradition that treats the city as the matrix of all political organizations and mulls over the ancient cities of refuge mentioned in the Laws of Moses. As he acknowledges, "if we look to the city, it is because we have given up hope that the state might create a new image to the city." Hospitality granted by individuals or communities such as churches sometimes go against the laws of the states, and can even be treated as 'acts of terrorism' or 'participation in a criminal conspiracy' in a post 9/11 world.

The second lecture, On Forgiveness, also underscores the tension between the individual and the state. Despite the political performance of the "theater of forgiveness" on which "the grand scene of repentance" is played over and again, Derrida insists that a public institution has neither the right nor the power to forgive. Pure forgiveness must engage two singularities, the victim and the perpetrator, without the intervention of a third party. It is therefore distinct from the "therapy of reconciliation" that nevertheless needs to be played so that wounds may be healed by the work of mourning.

To conclude, let me quote from the excellent preface that puts the two lectures in their intellectual context: "On Forgiveness and On Cosmopolitanism are proof, if proof were needed, that deconstruction is not some obscure textual operation initiated in a mandarin prose style, but is a concrete intervention in contexts that is governed by the undeconstructable concern for justice."

This is a review of _On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness_ by Jacques Derrida (Routledge, 2001).

Jacques Derrida, who died in 2004, was one of the most influential intellectuals of the twentieth century. But if you peek into his seminal work _Of Grammatology_ (1967), you'll see why he has a reputation for being quite hard to understand. What is nice about _On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness_ is that it gives you a general sense for what Derrida is all about, but in a style that you can actually follow.

This book consists of two brief essays by Derrida, on specific topics and in response to specific occasions. On Cosmopolitanism, which was an address to the International Parliament of Writers (1996), discusses the problem of cities of refuge : cities which are specifically intended to be open to refugees from around the world. It seems that, on the one hand, there is a need for such cities, because there are many refugees from political oppression and natural disasters around the world. On the other hand, how can there be cities of refuge in a world in which nation-states are the basic political units? Derrida gives an overview of the issue, and briefly discusses the views of Hannah Arendt (see her _The Origins of Totalitarianism_) and Kant (see his _Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay_).

On Forgiveness, which was originally a reply to a series of questions posted to Derrida by a French publication (1999), discusses the problem of forgiveness as it arises in response to outrages like aparthied and the Holocaust. For example, South Africa's famous Truth and Reconciliation Commission is sometimes conceptualized as promoting forgiveness for the perpetrators of aparthied. But can anything as awful as institutionalized racism and torture be forgiven? And even if it can be forgiven, can a political body (as opposed to a victim) offer it?

Although Derrida is much-discussed, and has had an immense influence on literary criticism, he is also extremely controversial. When he was given an honorary degree by Cambridge, one member of the faculty objected that "Mr. Derrida is forced to write more and more obscurely in order to conceal the fact that he has nothing to say." I think that particular comment is too harsh. But it is certainly an open question, at this point, what Derrida's long-term historical legacy will be. So how insightful are the essays in this volume?

I found On Cosmopolitanism interesting, but not particularly original or challenging. Derrida argues that there is a tension between a demand for unconditioned hospitality (shouldn't we be open to anyone who needs our help?) and a demand for conditioned hospitality (practically speaking, whom will we allow in, and under what conditions?). I found On Cosmopolitanism to be like a good (but not great) essay one might run across in a magazine like The Atlantic or The New York Review of Books. On Forgiveness was a bit more engaging. Derrida's primary thesis is that one can only forgive the unforgivable. Here is how I, at least, understand this idea. Suppose you have wronged me in some minor way, and I really ought to forgive you. Since I OUGHT to forgive you, there is nothing really special or problematic required of me. Indeed, if I don't forgive you in this case, it seems that I have wronged you. What IS special is when a person has done something so wrong that they are not entitled to forgiveness, but their victims offer them forgiveness anyway. But how is it possible for the victims to forgive, when what the perpetrators have done does not entitle them to forgiveness?

It is characteristic of Derrida's work to identify what he sees as contradictions, but then to argue that they are ultimately inescapable, and that we must learn to operate within them. So the ideas that we can only forgive the unforgivable and that hospitality is both unconditional and conditioned are very characteristic of his work. Would we learn more if we tried to resolve these contradictions? Or would the effort to resolve them be oversimplifications? This is precisely the sort of issue that divides Derrida's critics.

This work does not explain or even mention the key notions for underlying Derrida's method of deconstruction, including logocentrism and difference. But if you are looking for a brief, accessible introduction to Derrida's general approach, then I would recommend this book, especially On Forgiveness.

Derrida was fascinated by aporias: puzzlements, bewilderments, dilemmas. In the Anglo-American philosophical tradition, the urge is to unpack an aporia, to de-puzzle it, if you will. But so far as Derrida was concerned, the really interesting aporias are those that can neither be unpacked nor dismissed. He thought of them as "impossible possibles," in that the conditions for their being also entailed a negation or contradiction. Derrida speculated about several of these aporias. In these two essays, he's primarily concerned with hospitality and forgiveness.

Both hospitality and forgiveness are gifts, says Derrida, and in doing so he follows Judaic-Christian-Muslim normative traditions. But giving in the pure sense of the word means that the giving is anonymous--so anonymous that the recipient neither knows the benefactor nor even realizes that a gift has been given. Unconditional hospitality and forgiving, then, are possibilities whose very possibility seems to make them impossible: how, after all, can hospitality or forgiveness be said to be given if the recipient isn't aware of receiving? And yet this ideal, the impossible possible, ought to be kept as a standard.

Added to the paradoxical nature of giving is Derrida's claim that the only forgiving worthy of giving is for the unforgiveable. Otherwise, forgiving is always conditional--that is, we forgive on condition that the offense is forgiveable. Derrida's responding most directly to what he thinks is the philosopher Jankelevitch's claim that Nazi war criminals are unforgiveable. Actually, though, I think he misreads Jankelevitch. Jankelevitch argues that war crimes are unforgiveable if viewed from an historical/legal perspective. But when viewed from a pure perspective, they are forgiveable--precisely because they're unforgiveable. So Derrida, whether knowingly or not, is really knocking off Jankielevitch's thesis.

Still, an excellent and accessible read which serves as a nice complement to the typical way in which analytic philosophers examine forgiveness.

This book by Derrida is wonderfully synthetic. In it, he engages with a large number of other philosophers, including Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, and Immanuel Kant, and he also discusses at some length the Hebraic and Pauline scriptures. The book is also remarkably clear.

In my opinion, however, the clarity of this book makes it more difficult to read than some of his others, since its clarity might give the impression that a quick read would be sufficient. I think, instead, that one's guard should be up and that each word of Derrida's book should be read carefully, since many times the argument hinges on an 'if' or a 'perhaps.' However, having said that, I do believe that there is nothing in this book that an educated person (not just a philosopher) would not understand with a bit of work.

Let me back up a second again. Although Derrida writes (actually, speaks)here to be read, the things that Derrida discusses can be quite challenging. But they are challenging here not because he uses jargon but for the simple reason that one _does indeed_ understand what he means. It is not easy to be confronted by someone who says that the concepts one takes for granted are not stable.

In the first essay on Cosmopolitanism Derrida asks what it would mean to be hospitable to others and to create cities of refuge. Thinking of our own struggles in the US as we attempt to come to terms BOTH with the message on the Statue of Liberty that marks the beginning of New York City AND with current economic and political pressures that make any city living problematic, I find his essay exciting and troubling. As Derrida notes, the Torah in the book of _Numbers_ does seem to require a kind of hospitality in the very structure and experience of the city. But can we simply take over that requirement? If so, how? How can openness to others and to their plight be enacted without giving up the reliability and necessary limitations or boundaries of the city? How can openness not become overrun by those who seek it?

In the second essay, Derrida shows that forgiveness is only what it is if the person or event to be forgiven cannot actually be reached or touched by my effort to forgive. Very notably, his discussion of forgiveness here is the contrary to that of Arendt and others on the Holocaust. Forgiveness for Derrida must forgive the unforgivable (read the Holocaust) to be what it is. And yet Derrida acknowledges that unconditional forgiveness must still negotiate the very real, conditional demands of life together. This essay very much troubles me. How can I forgive the person who will later not be the same as the one who wronged me? How can I forgive the unforgivable and not perish as a victim of my own far-too-universal love? [I hear in Derrida's description of the problem of unconditional and conditional forgiveness an acknowledgment of Freud's _Civilization and Its Discontents_.]

For me, Derrida's second essay is more searing and interesting. Coming out of a Christian tradition, I find that Derrida's discussion of forgiveness opens new meaning in my re-reading of some of Jesus' final words: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. This 'not knowing' is precisely what prevents forgiveness from being powerful in a political sense. It is precisely what makes forgiveness impossible, since those who do not know what they do cannot really ask for forgiveness and cannot (it would _seem_) be changed by it. Does the impossibility of forgiveness make it unnecessary or futile? Derrida does not think so. But what then is its value if it is always prevented from reaching its object from before it begins?

As a final note, I think that Derrida's point throughout this book and throughout his corpus might be that none of us know what we are doing. We transgress, do violence, and rely on contradictions as if they were sure, foundational entities. What he wants us to do in this work is, to quote Arendt from _The Human Condition_ to think what we are doing. Or, to put it another way, to think what we _think_ we are doing and to see if in fact we are _really_ doing it at all.

What??? $75 (reduced price) for a paperback book? I don't care if it's written by Jesus H. C., that is too damn expensive.