Derrida's Hope and Despair for Globalization Page 4 ot ]U

Adam K. WebbJohns Hopkins Nanjing Centre in China

David M. WhalenHillsdale College

James Matthew WilsonVillanova University

William WilsonUniversity of Virginia

Gregory WolfeSeattle Pacific University

Derrida's Hope and Despair for GlobalizationWritten by Lee Trepanier

In this age of globalization, interest in ideas like global justice and cosmopolitan citizenship has beenon the rise. 1 Although cosmopolitanism is not a new idea, it is easy to see how it has gripped ourimagination: an enlightened individual who believes he or she belongs to a common humanity ratherthan to a set of particular customs or traditions. As a result of their allegiance to a single world order,cosmopolitans believe that peace among nations is possible only if we were to transcend ourparochial identities and interests in the name of global citizenship. Concerns such as tradition orplace are dismissed as relics of an age when tribal violence and ethnocentric imperialism dominatedthe world and held the progress of humanity back from its eventual state of peace, prosperity, andglobal solidarity.

•

This inspiration for a global community has its roots in classical antiquity, where politics wasdefined on the basis of a universal reason rather than a patriotism to a particular place: Zeno's"cosmopolis," Diogenes' "citizen of the world," Cicero's "common right ofhumanity."2 Morerecently Kant wrote about the "cosmopolitan condition" as rational and necessary to link nationstogether such that "a violation of rights in one part of the world" would be "felt everywhere."3Kant's idea of the "cosmopolitan condition" influenced subsequent thinkers in their conception ofcosmopolitanism: Hegel, Marx, Durkheim, Habermas, Appiah, and Nussbaum.4 But perhaps nothinker had so much influence on the recent thinking of cosmopolitanism as Jacques Derrida. Yet acloser look at Derrida's own writings reveals an ambiguous attitude towards cosmopolitanism andglobalization. Although generally supportive of these phenomena, Derrida also recognized thedangers of disregarding tradition, place, and, above all, religion.

For Derrida, the advent of globalization required both democratic and cosmopolitan theorists toreconceptualize ideas like democracy, citizenship, and political community. Rooted in a specifictradition and place, democratic theorists were forced to transform ideas like democracy in order forthem to be relevant in a globalized age, while cosmopolitan thinkers had to explain how global

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citizenship and democracy would be accomplished without nation-states. With his philosophy ofdeconstruction, Derrida was able to navigate this debate between democratic and cosmopolitantheorists to illustrate the opportunities and dangers that globalization posed. On the one hand,globalization had created a space for cosmopolitan values to take place of national ones; on the otherhand, any value, cosmopolitan or otherwise, inherently contained an aspect of violence thatglobalization made possible for everyone. Globalization, with its implicit notions of cosmopolitancitizenship and values, therefore was neither a golden panacea nor an unsolvable problem forDerrida; rather, it presented new opportunities as well as dangers.

Deconstruction and Cosmopolitanism

To understand Derrida's views on cosmopolitanism and globalization, one needs to be first familiarwith his philosophy of deconstruction. Derrida defined deconstruction as the refusal to defineanything categorically once and for all.5 It was a mode of existence that was never satisfied withconclusive definitions, aims, or ends, for such a task was not only impossible but dangerous, becauseit would marginalize certain people, ideas, institutions - the "other" - by keeping them from beingacknowledged. The deconstructionist therefore rejected foundational modes of existence thatcharacterized philosophies such as Platonic metaphysics, which assumed a transcendent reality thatwas transparent and structured in binary opposites.6 Instead of reinforcing existing power structures,the deconstructionist was to subvert them by tracing these power structures to their initial decisionthat privileged some set of values over another and then reclaimed these marginalized values thatwere originally excluded. This favoring of the "other" at the point of origin destabilized the originalpower structure and opened space for previously-excluded values.

However, the deconstruction did not seek to replace one power structure for another; rather, hecreated a state of tension between the existing power structure and a potential different one.7 Thisexistential mode of existence was known as differance: it was a state of tension that did not exist forits own sake but for the hope that ethical values would be realized. This ethical underpinning ofdifferance Derrida called messianic where one waited for ethical values like justice to arrive but didnot expect it.8 Structuring existence as one of patience and openness to an indeterminate future, themessianic possessed a certain skepticism towards philosophies that purported to know apredetermined end of historical existence that allowed them to justify violence against others. Optingfor a mode of patience and openness rather than finality and certitude, the deconstructionist existedin a state of tension and hope.

Cosmopolitanism was a potential source of hope for Derrida, where in his essay, "OnCosmopolitanism," he proposed an open city for immigrants where they would be protected frompersecution, intimidation, or exile. The idea of the open city had been marginalized by the rise of thenation-state and Derrida wanted to recover it as a potential solution to the problem of Europeanimmigration. This "confessional" cosmopolitanism differed from Kant's "triumphant" one in thatKant's cosmopolitanism was dependent upon the sovereignty of the state, where all values becamepoliticized and ultimately subordinated to the state's ends.9 By contrast, Derrida recovered the notionof a "confessional" cosmopolitanism where unconditional hospitality should be offered to allimmigrants, while, at the same time, recognizing that some limitation on the rights of residence hadto be in place. By identifying the contradictory logic in Kant's cosmopolitanism, thedeconstructionist was able to offer an alternative that, instead of being paralyzed, sought politicalaction and responsibility.

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Thus, Derrida's existential mode of patience and hope should not be confused with passivity andabdication. When confronted with ethical demands, the deconstructionist should choose a path ofresponsibility rather than resignation, although in doing so, he appeared to be adopting afoundational mode of existence that was no longer open to an indeterminate future. But this decisionto accept a type of responsibility that was beyond any type of rationality: it was a decision thatDerrida characterized as madness, resembling a leap in faith that was beyond one's control and yetdemanded that one should act.I 0 This "undecidable leap" allowed the deconstructionist to negotiatebetween the impossible and possible demands oflife. For Derrida, responsible ethical and politicalaction consisted in navigating between these two poles: pragmatic action had to be linked withimpossible responsibility if one did not wish one's actions to be reduced to merely power politics.Likewise, the impossible or unconditional cannot dictate incontestable ethical precepts to a specificcontext. For Derrida, these paradoxical situations demonstrated how ethical actions were possible butultimately non- foundational. 1 1

Violence and Religion

In this era of globalization, when the transnational institutions seek to replace national ones andabstract reason seeks to supplant local tradition, Derrida cautioned against the optimism of those whobelieved that a cosmopolitan order would bring a world of human rights and economic prosperity.With globalization the traditional distinctions, such as friend and foe, have lost their pertinence andwere replaced with a "new violence" that was:

... being prepared and in truth has been unleashed for some time now, in a way that is morevisibly suicidal or auto-immune than ever. This violence no longer has to do with world war oreven with war, even less with some right to wage war. And this is hardly re-assuring-indeed,quite the contrary. "12

The auto-immune to which Derrida referred was the ability to kill ourselves with the obliteration oftraditional distinctions like friend and foe or civilian and military. For example, to immunize oneselfagainst terrorist, one must discover and kill terrorists whether at home or abroad. But the more onekilled terrorists, the more one destroyed oneself in a world where borders were meaningless. Bycontrast, during the Cold War, the "other" was clearly delineated and therefore could be identified asan enemy to be killed. But in a globalized world, the enemy cannot be identified and consequentlycan never be entirely killed.

The end result was one of global genocide, since absolute threats can no longer be contained in thestate: the threat of the "worst" forms of violence became possible in this new age of globalizationwhen traditional distinctions disappeared.13 This violence was distinct from Kant's notion of radicalevil because this "worst" form completely appropriated the "other" and did not permit any otherpossibilities to exist. For Kant, radical evil was a phenomenon that was evil at its root, while forDerrida, radical evil was the "worst" where the "other" was completely absorbed. 14 This completeabsorption was the complete extermination of the "other."

The deconstructionist was to push people away from this worst form of violence to the least one.Derrida did not believe that violence could ever be eliminated, for such an elimination would be arejection of differance.l S The best one could hope for was a "return to the religious" as the path ofleast violence. 16 When examining the etymology of the Latin word for religion, Derrida discoveredthat there were two sources of religion: religio, which implied restraint or remaining safe, and re-legere, which suggested a link with another through faith. As in other concepts, Derrida teased out

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the oppositional values and the contradictory logic in these ideas. More importantly, he explored thelink that defined religion before it became associated only with the bond between man and divinity.In other words, Derrida attempted to reconceive the link to be as open-ended as possible, such thatthe concept of religion could encounter the other without doing the worst violence to it.I 7

Violence would always occur when a person encountered the other, because an unconditionalencounter was impossible for Derrida. There were always conditions when one encountered theother; therefore, the best one could do was determine which means were available for such anencounter and selected the one of least violence, i.e., the religious one. Thus, such cosmopolitanvalues as hospitality would always contain a kernel of violence, e.g., allowing some refugees inwhile refusing others. The impossibility of an unconditional hospitality meant that any attempt toopen the globe entirely to anyone was simply impossible; and attempts that masked themselves asunconditional hospitality could actually be a form of the worst type of violence. For Derrida, the bestone could do was practice a conditional and therefore violent hospitality; but this violence would belessened when one approached hospitality in a religious mode of existence. If the person were awareof his or her paradoxical situation and nevertheless still acted, then he or she would exist in a modethat was open to an encounter with the other as much as possible.

Conclusion

This other world that one waited for was not the globalized order, where the present power structureswere exacerbated, but an order where unconditionality would take reign. By being open to the realmof possibility, especially toward an indeterminate future where justice may (but never will) arrive,Derrida differentiated himself from transcendental philosophers like Kant whose philosophy wasfoundationalist: it subscribed to a universal and transparent rationality as a mode of operation, with aconstructed endpoint in time that would be achieved by using this rationality. Derrida believed such acondition was impossible and instead advocated unconditionality where any eschatological meaningwas beyond human cognitive faculties. 18 For Derrida, a truly cosmopolitan citizen was not a productof the current age of globalization but one who existed between this world and the one for which hewaited and hoped.

Derrida's deconstructionist philosophy therefore proposed a way out of the debates aboutglobalization between democratic theorists, who contend that the national community must be thefoundation for democracy, and cosmopolitan theorists, who advocate a cosmopolitan citizenshipbased on a global community. For Derrida, globalization presented the opportunity for democracy,justice, and other cosmopolitan values to be accepted if one were to accept the deconstructionistmode of existence; however, globalization also posed certain dangers, like the worst forms ofviolence, which could lead ultimately to global suicide. Calling for a return to religion andrecognizing the values that cosmopolitanism offered, Derrida's deconstructionist philosophy sawglobalization for what it truly is as a source of both hope and despair.

Notes

1. For more about cosmopolitanism, refer to Trepanier, Lee and Khalil M. Habib, ed.Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Globalization (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2011).

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2. Cicero. On Duties (De Officiis) 3.6.27-32; Diogenes Laertius. Lives of Eminent Philosophers 6.63,6.1. For more about cosmopolitanism in classical antiquity, refer to Richter, Daniel S. Cosmopolis:Imaging

Community in Late Classical Athens and the Early Roman Empire (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press,2011).

3. Kant, Immanuel. Kant: Political Writings, ed. Hans Reiss (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press,1991),107-8.

4. Hegel, Georg. Philosophy of Right, ed. Allen Wood, trans. H.B. Nisbet (Cambridge: CambridgeUniv. Press, 1991); Karl Marx and Fredrich Engles, "Communist Manifesto." In Karl Marx: SelectedWritings (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Press, 1994), 157-86; Durkheim, Emile. Professional Ethics andCivic Morals, trans. Cornelia Brookfield (New York: Routledge, 1992); Habermas, Jurgen. ThePostnational Constellations: Political Essays, ed. Max Pensky (Cambridge: Polity, 2001), 74-76;Appiah, Kwame Anthony. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (New York: Norton,2007); Martha Nussbaum, For Love of Country (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996).

5. Royle, Nicholas. Deconstructions: A User's Guide (London: Palgrave, 2000), 300. For more aboutdeconstructionism, refer to Caputo, John. Deconstruction in a Nutshell: A Conversation with JacquesDerrida (New York: Fordham Univ. Press, 1996); The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida:Religion without Religion (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1997).

6. Derrida, Jacques. Positions, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1981),41-42; alsorefer to Derrida, Jacques. Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press,1981),4-6.

7. Derrida, Jacques. The Gift of Death, trans. David Wills (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1995),65.

8. Jacques Derrida, "Psyche: Inventions of the Other." In Reading De Man Reading, ed. LindseyWalters and Wlad Godzich (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1989),60; also refer to Derrida,Jacques. Specters of Marx: The State of Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International,trans. Peggy Kamuf (New York: Routledge, 1994).

9. Derrida, Jacques. On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (New York: Routledge, 2001), 6-15,22.

10. Derrida, Jacques. Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, ed. Drucilla Cornell, MichaelRosefeld, and David Gary Carlson (New York: Taylor and Francis, 1992), 26; also refer to Derrida,The Gift of Death, 65-80.

11. Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, 54; also see 39-49.

12. Derrida, Jacques. Rouges: Two Essays on Reason, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Nass(Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 1998), 156.

13. Ibid., 105.

14. Jacques Derrida, "Faith and Knowledge: The Two Sources of 'Religion' at the Limits of ReasonAlone." In Religion, ed. Jacques Derrida and Gianni Vattimo, trans. Samuel Weber (Stanford, CA:

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Stanford Univ. Press, 1998), 65; Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology, trans., Gayatri Spivak(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1974), 234.

15. Derrida, Jacques. Writing and Difference (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1978), 130.

Derrida, Religion, 42-43.

16. Ibid.; also refer to Derrida, Jacques. Points ... Interviews, 1974-1994, trans., Peggy Kamuf et al.(Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press, 1995),279.

17. Derrida, Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, 6.

18. Derrida, Rouges, 87.

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