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Rocco D’Ambrosca: 12/17/2009

As long as man has roamed the earth, he has challenged the boundaries of both himself and nature to assume total understanding and domination. Throughout this history, man has come against limits to this pursuit. But time and time again, what was once said to be impossible in one day and age has been conquered and achieved in the next. For millennia, it was said man would never fly, until two brothers challenged that impossibility by refusing to accept it to be impossible. Although time has allowed great achievement in the area of physical nature, which was once thought impossible, in the area of human relations technological developments have no bearing. Within human relations we discover the truly unachievable, unattainable, uncomprehendible impossible. The philosophers Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida each confront the impossible in two distinct but extremely related areas. Levinas encounters the impossible in the responsibility to the other; while Derrida encounters the impossible in forgiveness. It is within this impossible responsibility to the other that we find the impossibility of forgiveness.

            Levinas treats the responsibility to the other as self evident simply saying, “that since the Other looks at me, I am responsible for him, without even having taken on responsibilities in his regard; his responsibility is incumbent on me. It is responsibility that goes beyond what I do. Usually, one is responsible for what one does oneself. I say, in Otherwise than Being, that responsibility is initially a for the Other. This means that I am responsible for his very responsibility.” (Levinas 96). Levinas treats this as a closed loop system; that the very existence of himself and an Other, forces there to be an inherent responsibility between them. He believes that our only connection to the Other, the only thing that ever exists or matters in human relations is responsibility. “The tie with the Other is knotted only as responsibility, this moreover, whether accepted or refused, whether knowing or not knowing how to assume it, whether able or unable to do something concrete for the Other” (Levinas 97). “I analyze the inter-human relationship as if, in proximity with the Other—beyond the image I myself make of the other man – his face, the expressive in the Other (and the whole human body is in this sense more or less face), were what ordains me to serve him. I employ this extreme formulation. The face orders and ordains me. Its signification is an order signified.” (Levinas 98).

            Having established his grounds for human relations and the responsibility that unites ourselves to the Other, he moves towards defining the responsibility of the Other to us. “Is not the Other responsible in my regard? Perhaps, but that is his affair.”; “I am responsible for the Other without waiting for reciprocity, were I to die for it. Reciprocity is his affair. It is precisely insofar as the relationship between the Other and me is not reciprocal that I am subjection to the Other; and I am “subject” essentially in this sense. It is I who support all.” (Levinas 98). The impossible is seen here as the inability to remove this responsibility because it is naturally inherent. “It is I who support the Other and am responsible for him”; “My responsibility is untransferable, no one could replace me.” (Levinas 100). Levinas takes the responsibility to the Other so far as to define the very nature and identity of the self saying, “I am I in the sole measure that I am responsible, a non-interchangable I. I can substitute myself for everyone, but no one can substitute himself for me. Such is my inalienable identity of subject.” (Levinas 101).

            Derrida encounters the impossible in his analysis of forgiveness. Forgiveness by definition requires some type of act to be committed unwantingly against another. The impossible first arises in the very notion of forgiveness. If you assume like Derrida that the unforgivable exists, “it seems to me, to begin from fact that, yes, there is the unforgivable”, (Derrida 32), you must say in your heart, “Is this not, in truth, the only thing to forgive? The only thing that calls for forgiveness? If one is only prepared to forgive what appears forgivable, what the church calls ‘venial sin’, then the very idea of forgiveness would disappear.” (Derrida 32). Derrida believes that any notion of forgiveness for anything less than something truly unforgiveable, is equal to the common almost meaningless utterance of, “excuse me” when two people accidentally collide. “If there is something to forgive, it would be what in religious language is called mortal sin, the worst, the unforgiveable crime or harm. From which comes the aporia, which can be described in its dry and implacable formality, without mercy: forgiveness forgives only the unforgiveable.” (Derrida 32). Derrida himself confronts the impossibility of forgiveness head on saying, “One cannot, or should not, forgive; there is only forgiveness, if there is any, where there is the unforgiveable. That is to say that forgiveness must announce itself as impossibility itself.” (Derrida 33). Derrida is saying that the very concept of forgiveness is in and of itself equal in definition to the absolute concept of impossibility.

The time between the transgression and the act of forgiveness for said transgression is yet another even greater source of impossibility in the notion of forgiveness. One problem that arises is in the case of murder. How could the murdered ever, in the current confines of reality, forgive the murderer?  It would assumingly require the existence of a neutral afterlife similar to that of Greek mythology; so that the murderer would not be confined to a hell separate from the, presumed to be innocent, murdered, who may be destined for heaven. The two would be required to meet again within such a place and have the murdered forgive the murderer. But even outside of this metaphysical challenge, comes the condition of the murdered to honestly and wholeheartedly forgive the murderer. Here arises the aporia, as mentioned by Derrida, in the undecidable, being tied to the responsibility of self and the other. The responsibility to defend oneself from an enemy and the responsibility to turn the other cheek and forgive without expectation of reciprocity are in direct conflict. Derrida confronts this conflict saying, “pure and unconditional forgiveness, in order to have its own meaning, must have no ‘meaning’, no finality, even no intelligibility. It is a madness of the impossible, It would be necessary to follow, without letting up, the consequence of this paradox, or this aporia.” (Derrida 45).

The second problem that arises is the ability for the transgressor to rehabilitate oneself, become a person of greater moral substance, and leave behind their past sinful self. Again, the time between the incident and the possible act of forgiveness allows change to occur. The transgressor may now have the ability to repent for past sins, and reinvent himself through his rejection of his past despicable self. Would the forgiveness come from the person who sinned or from the person who repents? Are they two separate people? Derrida seems to believe so saying, “Imagine, then, that I forgive on the condition that the guilty one repents, mends his ways, asks forgiveness, and thus would be changed by a new obligation, and that from then on he would no longer be exactly the same as the one who was found to be culpable.” (Derrida 39).

The aporia mentioned by both Levinas and Derrida is where the impossibility described by both of them intersects. The impossibility of forgiveness is tied directly and defined by the impossible responsibility to the other. Take for example the terrorists of September 11^th, 2001. Imagine that a family member of one of the victims truly wants to forgive the terrorist; say for the reason that they believe that the person is a lost soul, and is simply misguided, and if they had been in a better circumstance or had been better educated or even if they hadn’t been possibly brainwashed, they would have never committed such an act. Put aside the problem of the murdered not being able to forgive the murderer and just examine the act of a wife forgiving the person for the act that has robbed her of her husband. What if we dare to say the terrorist rejects this honest and heartfelt apology? What if this tremendous saintly act of forgiveness falls on deaf ears? Can someone who doesn’t want forgiveness ever truly be forgiven? The terrorist may even spit in her face and say they are glad that it went so well, that they had every intention of it happening, that they believe they are completely in the right, that God is on their side, and if given the chance would do it a thousand times over again. Here most directly lies this impossible responsibility to the other to try and convince them otherwise and get them to see their wrong doing and accept the apology. At the same time this terrorist will fight tooth and nail to do everything possible not to accept this forgiveness and turn this woman against herself and get her to rescind this forgiveness. It is an ever increasingly steep slope that would if continued inevitably brings them both to emotional breakdown.

The same could be said of the reverse situation. Take the case of a criminal who rapes and murders a family’s daughter. Imagine that this person eventually or even immediately regrets their actions and seeks forgiveness. The family may be so hardened in their anger and hatred of this criminal that they could never even look at him let alone forgive him. Without even bringing into the equation the physical barriers of the jail cell, distancing the criminal from ever freely having access to try and seek forgiveness, we can clearly see the emotional difficulty of the family even wanting to forgive.

Forgiveness may truly be impossible when one party will not accept the apology or the other doesn’t even want to accept the forgiveness because they feel they were in the right. The same is true of the responsibility to the other, it is truly impossible. No matter how much we try and care for another, take responsibility for them, or try and help them in any way, it can always be rejected and spit back in our faces. We can all try our very best in our ability to coexist together on this planet; but in the end we will always be forced in one circumstance or another to appeal to a higher power. If not God, then at the very least the universe and the course it takes without us ever having hope of controlling it. We all have paths to take in our lives and can’t be forced one way or another by anyone else. We can always take advice but it doesn’t mean we ever listen or take it to heart or put into practice. We just have to hope for the best and that if the Other doesn’t learn in this life, hopefully they learn in the next.