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Diacritics.
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GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF
ONESELF
JUDITHBUTLER
In recent years, the critique of poststructuralism,itself loquacious, has held that the
postulationof a subjectwho is not self-groundingunderminesthe possibility of respon-
sibility and, in particular,of giving an account of oneself. Critics have arguedthat the
various critical reconsiderationsof the subject, including those that do away with the
theory of the subjectaltogether,cannotprovidethe basis for an accountof responsibil-
ity, thatif we are, as it were, divided,ungrounded,or incoherentfromthe start,it will be
impossible to grounda notion of personalor social responsibilityon the basis of such a
view. I would like to try to rebutthis view in what follows, and to show how a theoryof
subject-formationthat acknowledgesthe limits of self-knowledgecan work in the ser-
vice of a conception of ethics and, indeed, of responsibility.If the subjectis opaqueto
itself, it is not thereforelicensed to do what it wants or to ignore its relationsto others.
Indeed,if it is precisely by virtueof its relationsto othersthatit is opaqueto itself, and
if those relationsto others are precisely the venue for its ethical responsibility,then it
may well follow that it is precisely by virtue of the subject's opacity to itself that it
sustainssome of its most importantethical bonds.
In all the talk about the social constructionof the subject, we have perhapsover-
looked the fact that the very being of the self is dependentnot just on the existence of
the Other-in its singularity,as Levinas would have it, though surelythat-but also on
the possibility that the normativehorizon within which the Other sees and listens and
knows andrecognizes is also subjectto a criticalopening.This opening calls into ques-
tion the limits of establishedregimes of truth,where a certain risking of the self be-
comes, as Levinas claims, the sign of virtue [see Foucault].Whetheror not the Otheris
singular,the Otheris recognized and confers recognition througha set of norms that
governrecognizability.So whereasthe Othermay be singular,if not radicallypersonal,
the normsare to some extent impersonaland indifferent,and they introducea disorien-
tationof perspectivefor the subjectin the midst of recognitionas an encounter.For if I
understandmyself to be conferringrecognition on you, for instance, then I take seri-
ously that the recognition comes from me. But in the moment that I realize that the
terms by which I confer recognitionare not mine alone, that I did not singlehandedly
make them, then I am, as it were, dispossessedby the languagethatI offer.In a sense, I
submit to a norm of recognition when I offer recognition to you, so that I am both
subjectedto that normand the agency of its use.
As Hegel would have it, recognitioncannot be unilaterallygiven. In the moment
that I give it, I am potentially given it, and the form by which I offer it is one that
potentiallyis given to me. In this sense, one mightsay,I can neverofferit, in the Hegelian
sense, as a pureoffering, since I am receiving it, at least potentiallyand structurally,in
the moment,in the act, of giving. We might ask, as Levinas surelyhas, whatkind of gift
this is thatreturnsto me so quickly,thatneverreally leaves my hands.Is it the case that
recognitionconsists, as it does for Hegel, in a reciprocalact whereby I recognize that
the you comes beforethe we, beforetheplural you and beforethe they. Symp-
tomatically,the you is a termthat is not at home in modernand contemporary
developmentsof ethics andpolitics. The "you"is ignoredby the individualis-
tic doctrines, which are too preoccupiedwithpraising the rights of the I, and
the "you" is maskedby a Kantianform of ethics that is only capable of staging
an I that addresses itself as a familiar "you."Neither does the "you"find a
homein theschools of thoughtto whichindividualismis opposed-these schools
reveal themselvesfor the mostpart to be affectedby a moralisticvice, which,
in orderto avoidfalling into the decadenceof the I, avoids the contiguityof the
you, andprivileges collective,pluralpronouns.Indeed,many "revolutionary"
movements(which rangefrom traditionalcommunismto thefeminism of sis-
terhood)seem to share a curious linguistic code based on the intrinsicmoral-
ity of pronouns.Thewe is alwayspositive, theplural you is a possible ally, the
they has theface of an antagonist,the I is unseemly,and the you is, of course,
superfluous.[90-91]
24
For Cavarero,the "I"encountersthe Othernot as a specific set of contents,but as a
being fundamentallyexposed, visible, seen, existing in a bodily way and of necessity in
a domain of appearance.It is, as it were, this exposure that I am that constitutes my
singularity.I cannot will it away, for it is a featureof my very corporealityand, in this
sense, my life, and yet it is not that over which I can have control. One might borrow
Heideggerianparlanceto explain Cavarero'sview and say that no one can be exposed
for me, thatI am, in this way, nonsubstitutable.But does the social theoryderivedfrom
Hegel, in its insistence on the impersonalperspectiveof the norm,establishmy substi-
tutability?Am I, in relationto the norm, substitutable?And yet, as a being constituted
bodily in the public sphere,arguesCavarero,I am exposed, and this is as much a partof
my publicity, if not my sociality, as the way that I become recognizable throughthe
operationof norms.
Cavarero'sargumentlimits the claims of Hegelian sociality upon us, but it also
offers directionfor a differenttheory of recognition.Thereare at least two points to be
made here: the first has to do with our fundamentaldependencyon the Other,the fact
that we cannot exist without addressingthe Otherand without being addressedby the
Other,thatthereis no wishing away ourfundamentalsociality.(Youcan see thatI resort
here to the pluralwe, even as Cavarreroadvises against it, precisely because I am not
convinced that we must abandonit.) The second, however, limits the first point. No
matterhow much we each desire recognition and requireit, we are not thereforepre-
cisely the same as the Other,and not everythingcounts as recognitionin the same way.
Although I have arguedthat no one can recognize anothersimply by virtue of special
psychological or critical skills, and thattherearenormsthatconditionthe possibility of
recognition,it still mattersthatwe feel more properlyrecognizedby some people than
we do by others.And this differencecannotbe explainedsolely throughrecourseto the
notionthatthereis a variableoperationof the normat work in these instances.Cavarero
is braverthanI am and remarksthatthereis an irreducibilityto each of our beings, one
which becomes clear in the distinct stories we have to tell, so that any effort to fully
identify with a collective "we"will fail. The way thatCavareroputs it is, "whatwe have
called an altruisticethics of relationdoes not supportempathy,identification,or confu-
sions. Ratherthis ethic desires a you thatis trulyan other,in her uniquenessand distinc-
tion. No matterhow much you are similarand consonant,says this ethic, your story is
nevermy story.No matterhow muchthe largertraitsof ourlife-stories aresimilar,I still
do not recognize myself in you and, even less, in the collective we" [92]. The unique-
ness of the Otheris exposed to me, but mine is also exposed to her, and this does not
mean we are the same, but only thatwe areboundto one anotherby what differentiates
us, namely,our singularity.
The notion of singularityis very often bound up with existential romanticismand
with a claim of authenticity,but I gatherthatprecisely because it is withoutcontent,my
singularityhas some propertiesin common with yours, and so is, to some extent, a
substitutableterm. In other words, even as she argues that singularitysets a limit to
substitutability,she also arguesthat singularityhas no defining content other than the
irreducibilityof exposure,of being this body exposed to a publicitythatis variablyand
alternatelyintimateand anonymous.But Hegel's analysis of the "this"points out thatit
never specifies withoutgeneralizing,thatthe term,in its very substitutability,undercuts
the specificity it seeks to indicate.Insofaras this fact of exposureis a collective condi-
tion and characterizesus all equally, it not only reinstalls the "we" but establishes a
certain principle of substitutabilityat the core of singularity.You may think that this
conclusion is too happily Hegelian, but I would like to interrogateit further,since I
think it has ethical consequences for the problematicof giving an account of oneself,
and of giving an account for another.This exposure, for instance, is not precisely
26
where I learnedthem, whatI thoughtof them, which ones became incorporatedat once,
and in what way. At this point the story that I tell, one that may even have a certain
necessity, cannot assume thatits referentcan adequatelytake narrativeform. (The nar-
rativeworks as allegory,attemptingto give a sequentialaccountfor that which cannot,
finally, be graspedin sequentialterms, for that which has a temporalityor a spatiality
that can only be denied or displaced or transmutedwhen it assumes narrativeform.
Indeed, it may be that what I am perhapsboldly calling the referenthere works as a
constantthreatto narrativeauthorityeven when it functions as the paradoxicalcondi-
tion for a narrative,a narrativethatgives provisionaland fictive sequenceto thatwhich
necessarilyeludes that construction.)
There are, then, several ways in which the account I may give of myself has the
potentialto break apartand to become undermined.My efforts to give an account of
myself founder in part upon the fact of my exposure to you, an exposure in spoken
language and, in a different way, in written address as well [see Felman]. This is a
condition of my narrationthat I cannot fully thematize within any narrativeI might
provide,and thatdoes not fully yield to a sequentialaccount.Thereis a bodily referent
here, a condition of me, that I can point to, but I cannotnarrateprecisely, even though
thereareno doubtstoriesaboutwhere my body went andwhat it did anddid not do. But
there is also a history to my body for which I can have no recollection, and there is as
well a partof bodily experience-what is indexed by the word "exposure"-that only
with difficulty,if at all, can assumenarrativeform. On the otherhand,exposure,like the
operationof the norm,constitutesthe conditionsof my own emergenceandknowability,
and I cannotbe presentto a temporalitythatprecedes my own capacityfor self-reflec-
tion. This means thatmy narrativebegins in media res, when many things have already
takenplace to make me and my story in languagepossible. And it means thatmy story
always arriveslate. I am always recuperating,reconstructing,even as I producemyself
differentlyin the very act of telling. My accountof myself is partial,hauntedby thatfor
which I have no definitive story. I cannot explain exactly why I have emerged in this
way, and my effortsat narrativereconstructionare always undergoingrevision.Thereis
that in me and of me for which I can give no account.But does this mean thatI am not,
in the moralsense, accountablefor who I am andfor whatI do?And if I find thatdespite
my best efforts,a certainopacity persistsandI cannotmakemyself fully accountableto
you, is this ethical failure?Or is it a failurethatgives rise to a certainethical disposition
in the place of a full and satisfying notion of narrativeaccountability?
It may be that a certainability to affirmwhat is contingentand incoherentin iden-
tity allows one to affirmothers who may or may not "mirror"one's own constitution.
After all, the mirroralways tacitly operatesin Hegel's concept of reciprocalrecogni-
tion: I must somehow see that the Otheris like me, that the Otheris makingthis same
recognitionof our likeness. There is lots of light in the Hegelian room, and the mirrors
have the happy coincidence of usually being windows as well [see Abrams;Kearney].
In this sense, we might consider a certainpost-Hegelianreadingof the scene of recog-
nition in which precisely my own opacity to myself occasions my capacity to confer a
certainkind of recognitionon others.It would be perhapsan ethics based on our shared,
and invariable,partialblindness about ourselves. The recognitionthat one is, at every
turn,not quite the same as what one thinks that one is, might imply, in turn, a certain
patience for others that suspends the demandthat they be selfsame at every moment.
Suspendingthe demandfor self-identityor, more particularly,for complete coherence,
seems to me to counter a certain ethical violence that demandsthat we manifest and
maintainself-identityat all times and requirethatothersdo the same. For subjectswho
live in time this is a hard norm to satisfy, if not impossible. For subjects whose very
capacity to recognize and become recognized is occasioned by a norm which has a
28
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is built.And because the termsby which recognitionoperatesmay seek to fix and cap-
ture us, they run the risk of arrestingdesire, and of putting a certainend to life. As a
result, it would be importantto consider that any theory of recognitionwould have to
give an account of the desire for recognition,and recognize that desire sets the limits
and the conditions for the operationof recognition itself. Indeed, a certain desire to
persist, we might say, following Spinoza, underwritesrecognition, such that forms of
recognitionor, indeed,forms of judgmentthatseek to relinquishor destroythe desireto
persist,the desire for life itself, undercutthe very conditionsof recognitionitself.
In this sense, recognitioncould not be reducedto makinganddeliveringjudgments
aboutothers,althoughthe latterwould be obligatedto honorthe conditionsfor recogni-
tion. In fact, recognitionsometimesobligates us to suspendjudgmentin orderto appre-
hend the Other.We sometimes move too quickly to summarizeanother'slife, andthink
thatthe ethical postureis, and must be, the one thatjudges, that can show not only that
it can and will makejudgments,but thatit canjustify thejudgmentsthatit makes.What
is the scene of recognition,however,that is presupposedby the act of judgment?And
does recognitionprovidea broaderframeworkwithinwhich moraljudgmentitself might
be assessed? Does it allow us to ask the question, "Whatis the value of moraljudg-
ment?,"in a way that recalls Nietzsche's question, "Whatis the value of morality?"
When he posed it, he also posited a value in the very way that the question was posed,
for if thereis a value to morality,it is one thatwe find outside of morality,by which we
gauge morality,thus assertingthat moralitydoes not have a monopoly on the field of
values.
The scene of moraljudgment,when it is thejudgmentof personsthatis at issue, is
invariablyone which establishesa clearmoraldistancebetweenthe one who judges and
the one who is judged. If you consider, for instance, Simone de Beauvoir's question,
"MustWe Bur Sade?,"mattersbecome more complicated.It turnsout that it may be
that only throughan experience of the Otherunderconditions of suspendedjudgment
do we finally become capableof an ethicalreflectionon the humanityof the Other,even
when thathumanityhas turnedagainstitself. And thoughI am certainlynot arguingthat
we ought never to makejudgments-they are necessary for political and personallife
alike: I make them, and I will-I think that it would be important,in rethinkingthe
termsof the cultureof ethics, to rememberthatnot all ethical relationsare reducibleto
acts of judgment.The capacity to make andjustify moraljudgments does not exhaust
the sphereof ethics, of eitherethical obligationor ethical relationality.Indeed,priorto
judging an Other, we must be in some relation to him or her, and this relation will
ground and inform the ethical judgments we finally do make. We will, in some way,
have to ask the question, "Who are you?" If we forget that we are relatedto those we
condemn,even those we mustcondemn,thenwe lose the chanceto be ethicallyeducated
or "addressed"by a considerationof who they areandwhattheirpersonhoodsays about
the range of humanpossibility thatexists, and even to prepareourselves for or against
such possibilities. We also forget that judging an Other is a mode of address:even
punishmentsarepronouncedanddeliveredto the face of the Other,requiringthatOther's
bodily presence.Hence, if thereis an ethic to the address,andjudgment,includinglegal
judgment,is oneform of address, then the value ofjudgmentwill be conditionedby the
form of address it takes.
Consider that one way we become responsible and self-knowing is precisely by
deferringjudgments,since condemnation,denunciation,and excoriationwork as quick
ways to posit an ontological difference between judge andjudged, and even to purge
oneself of anotherso that condemnationbecomes the way in which we establish the
Otheras nonrecognizable.In this sense, condemnationcan workprecisely againstself-
knowledgeinasmuchas it moralizesa self througha disavowal.Althoughself-knowledge
30
is surely limited, that is not a reason to turn against it as a project;but condemnation
tends to do precisely this, seeking to purge and externalizeone's own opacity, and in
this sense failing to own its own limitations,providingno felicitous basis for a reciprocal
recognitionof humanbeings as constitutivelylimited.
Similarly,condemnationis very often an act that not only "gives up" on the one
condemned,but seeks to inflict a violence upon the condemnedin the name of "ethics."
Kafka offers several instances of how this kind of ethical violence works. We might
consider in this regardthe fate of Georg in the story called "The Judgment,"in which
his fathercondemnshim to deathby drowning;Georg is rushedfrom the room, as if by
the force of the utteranceitself, andover the side of the bridge.Of course, thatutterance
has to appealto a psyche disposed to satisfy the father'swish to see the son dead, as the
story also confirms,so the condemnationcannotwork unilaterallyin that sense. Georg
must take the condemnationas the principle of his own conduct. Georg's suicidal im-
pulse, however,does not take away from the fact thatif condemnationdoes seek, in the
extreme, to annihilatethe Other,then it not only, quite obviously, destroys the condi-
tions for autonomy,but erodes the capacityof the addressedsubjectfor both self-reflec-
tion and social recognition,two practicesthat are, I would argue,essential to any sub-
stantive account of ethical life. It also, of course, turns the moralist into a murderer.
When denunciationworks to paralyzeand deratifythe critical capacitiesof the subject
to whom it is delivered, it underminesor even destroys the very capacities of the ad-
dresseethatareneededfor ethical reflectionandconduct,sometimesleadingto suicidal
conclusions. This suggests that recognition must be sustainedfor ethical judgment to
work productively;thatis, for it to come to informthe self-reflective deliberationsof a
subjectwho standsa chance of acting differentlyin the future,it must be a recognition
in the service of sustainingand promotinglife. In a real sense, we do not survive with-
out being addressed,which means thatthe context of addresscan and should provide a
sustainingconditionfor ethical deliberation,judgment,and conduct.In the same way, I
would argue,the institutionsof punishmentand imprisonmenthave the responsibility
to sustainthe very lives thatentertheirdomainsprecisely because they have the power,
in the name of "ethics,"to damage and destroylives with impunity.
So how do these concernsrelateto the questionof whetherone can give an account
of oneself? Let us rememberthat one gives an account of oneself to another,and that
every accountingtakes place in the context of an address.I give an accountof myself to
you. Further,the context of address, what we might call the rhetorical context for
responsibility,means thatI am engaging not only in a reflexive activity,thinkingabout
and reconstructingmyself, but also in speakingto you and thus institutinga relationin
languageas I go. The ethical valence of the situationis thus not restrictedto the question
of whether or not my account of myself is adequate.One must also ask whether in
giving the account,I establisha relationshipto the one to whom my accountis addressed,
and whether both parties to the interlocutionare engaged in a sustaining address, a
revised scene of reciprocalrecognitionin which full accountabilityis neitherexpected
norprovided.Withinthe contextof the transference,the "you"is often a defaultstructure
of address,2the elaborationof a "you"in an imaginarydomain,and an addressthrough
which prior,andmorearchaic,formsof addressareconveyed.In the transference,speech
works primarilynot to convey information(includingthe informationabout my life),
but as the conduitfor a desire, andas a rhetoricalstructurethatseeks to alteror act upon
the interlocutoryscene itself. Psychoanalysishas alwaysunderstoodthis dualdimension
of the self-disclosing speech act, that it is, on the one hand, an effort to reveal oneself
32
fact thatthe very possibility of linguistic agency is derived from the situationin which
one finds oneself addressedby a language one never chose. If I am first addressedby
another,and if this addresscomes to me priorto the questionof my individuation,then
in what sense does it come to me? Levinas has claimed that the addressof the Other
constitutes me. And Jean Laplanche,within a psychoanalyticvein, argues something
similarwhen he claims thatthe addressof the Other,conceived as a demand,implants
or insinuates itself into what will later come to be called, in a theoreticalvein, "my
unconscious."In a sense, this nomenclaturewill always be giving the lie to itself. In a
sense, it will be impossible to say "myunconscious,"because it is not a possession; it is
precisely that which I cannot own. And yet the grammarby which we seek to give an
account of this psychic domainthat I do not, and cannot, own paradoxicallyattributes
this unconsciousto me, as thatwhich belongs to me, the subject,as any numberof other
features might be said to belong to me, the subject. To understandthe unconscious,
however,is precisely to understandwhat cannotbelong, properlyspeaking,to me, pre-
cisely because it is a way of being dispossessed throughthe addressof the Otherfrom
the start.For Laplanche,I am animatedby this call or this demand, and I am at first
overwhelmedby this demand;the Otheris, from the start,too much for me, enigmatic,
inscrutable.And this "too much-ness"must be handled and contained for something
called an "I"to emerge in its separateness.The unconscious is not a topos into which
this "toomuch-ness"is deposited.The unconsciousis formed,as a psychic requirement
of survivaland individuation,as a way of managing-and failing to manage-that ex-
cess and, in that sense, as the continuinglife of that excess itself.
The transferenceis precisely the emotionallyladen scene of address,recallingthat
Otherand its overwhelmingness,reroutingthe unconsciousthroughan externalityfrom
which it is returnedin some way. So the point of the transferenceand the countertrans-
ference is not only to build or rebuild the story of one's life, but also to enact what
cannotbe narrated,and to enact the unconsciousas it is relived in the scene of address
itself. If the transferencerecapitulatesthe unconscious, then I undergoa dispossession
of myself in the scene of address.This does not mean thatI am possessed by the Other,
since the Otheris also dispossessed,called upon, andcalling, in a relationthatis not, for
that reason, reciprocal.Nevertheless,just because the analyst handles this disposses-
sion betterthan I do, there is a dislocation that both interlocutorsundergoin orderfor
access to the unconscious to take place. I am caught up in that address, even as the
analystcontractsnot to overwhelmme with her need. Nevertheless,I am overwhelmed
by something,andI thinkI am overwhelmedby her;she is the name I have for this "too
much-ness,"butthereis alwaysthe questionof the "who"-by whom am I overwhelmed?
And who is she? The "Who are you?" is in a sense the question that the infant poses
towardthe demandsof the adult("Whoareyou, andwhat do you want of me?").In this
respect, the Laplanchianperspectiveoffers us a way of revising Cavarero'sclaim that
the question that inauguratesethics is, "Who are you?" In the case of the analyst, I
cannotknow,but the pursuitof this unsatisfiablequestionelaboratesthe ways in which
that enigmatic Otherinauguratesand structuresme. It also means that she is interpel-
lated for me as both more and less than what she is, and this incommensurabilityac-
counts for the countertransference.She is, in her own way, dispossessed in the moment
of acting as its site of transferfor me. Whatam I calling on her to be? And how does she
takeup thatcall? Whatmy call recalls for her will be the site of the countertransference,
but about this I cannot know. Vainly I ask, "Who are you?," and then, more soberly,
"Whathave I become here?"And she asks those questionsof me as well, from her own
distance, and in ways I cannotprecisely know or hear.This not-knowingdrawsupon a
priornot-knowing,the not-knowingby which the subjectis inaugurated,althoughthat
"not-knowing"is repeatedand elaboratedin the transferencewithoutprecisely becom-
ing a site to which I might return.
34
if, in the name of ethics, we requirethatanotherdo a certainviolence to herself, and do
it in frontof us, offeringa narrativeaccountor, indeed, a confession, then, conversely,it
may be thatby permitting,sustaining,accommodatingthe interruption,a certainprac-
tice of nonviolence precisely follows. If violence is the act by which a subject seeks to
reinstallits masteryand unity,then nonviolencemay well follow from living the persis-
tent challenge to masterythat our obligationsto othersrequire.
Although some would say that to be a split subject, or a subject whose access to
itself is opaque and not self-grounding,is precisely not to have the groundsfor agency
and the conditionsfor accountability,it may be thatthis way in which we are, from the
start,interruptedby alterityand not fully recoverableto ourselves, indicatesthe way in
which we are,from the start,ethically implicatedin the lives of others.The point here is
not to celebratea certainnotion of incoherence,but only to consider that our incoher-
ence is ineradicablebut nontotalizing,and that it establishes the way in which we are
implicated,beholden,derived,constitutedby whatis beyond us andbefore us. If we say
thatthe self mustbe narrated,thatonly the narratedself can be intelligible, survivable,
then we say that we cannot survive with an unconscious. We say, in effect, that the
unconsciousthreatensus with an insupportableunintelligibility,and for thatreasonwe
mustoppose it. The "I"who makes such an utterancewill surely,in one formor another,
be besieged precisely by what it disavows. This stand, and it is a stand, it must be a
stand, an upright,wakeful, knowing stand, believes that it survives withoutthe uncon-
scious or, if it accepts an unconscious, accepts it as something which is thoroughly
recuperableby the knowing "I,"as a possession perhaps,believing thatthe unconscious
can be fully and exhaustivelytranslatedinto what is conscious. It is easy to see this as a
defended stance, for it remainsto be known in what this particulardefense consists. It
is, after all, the stand that many make against psychoanalysis itself. In the language
which articulatesthe opposition to a non-narrativizablebeginning resides the fear that
the absence of narrativewill spell a certainthreat,a threatto life, and will pose the risk,
if not the certainty,of a certainkind of death,the deathof a subjectwho cannot,who can
never,fully recuperatethe conditions of its own emergence.
But this death,if it is a death,is only the deathof a certainkind of subject,one that
was neverpossible to begin with, the deathof a fantasy,and so a loss of what one never
had.
One goes to analysis, I presume, to have someone receive one's words, and this
produces a quandary,since the one who might receive the words is unknownin large
part,and so the one who receives becomes, in a certainway, an allegory for reception
itself, for the phantasmaticrelationto receiving that is articulatedto, or at least in the
face of, an Other.But if this is an allegory,it is not reducibleto a structureof reception
that would apply equally well to everyone, althoughit would give us the general struc-
tures within which a particularlife might be understood.We, as subjects who narrate
ourselves in the first person,encounterin common somethingof a predicament.Since I
cannottell the storyin a straightline, and I lose my thread,and I startagain, and I forget
somethingcrucial, and it is to hardto think abouthow to weave it in, and I startthink-
ing, thinking,there must be some conceptualthreadthat will provide a narrativehere,
some lost link, some possibility for chronology,and the "I"becomes increasinglycon-
ceptual,increasinglyawake, focused, determined,it is at this point thatthe threadmust
fall apart.The "I" who narratesfinds that it cannot direct its narration,finds that it
cannotgive an accountof its inabilityto narrate,why its narrationbreaksdown, and so
it comes to experienceitself, or, rather,reexperienceitself, as radically,if not irretriev-
ably, unknowingaboutwho it is. And then the "I"is no longer impartinga narrativeto
a receiving analystor Other.The "I"is breakingdown in certainvery specific ways in
frontof the Otheror, to anticipateLevinas, in the face of the Other(originallyI wrote,
36
there is no final or adequatenarrativereconstructionof the prehistoryof the speaking
"I" does not mean we cannot narrateit. It only means that at the moment when we
narratewe become speculativephilosophersor fiction writers.And (2) it is this prehis-
tory which has never stoppedhappeningand, as such, is not a prehistoryin any chrono-
logical sense. It is not done with, over,relegatedto a past, which then becomes partof a
causal or narrativereconstructionof the self. On the contrary,it is thatprehistorywhich
interruptsthe story I have to give of myself, which makes every account of myself
partialand failed (and constitutes,in a way, my failure to be fully accountablefor my
actions, my final "irresponsibility,"one for which I may be forgiven only because I
could not do otherwise,and thatnot being able to do otherwiseis our common predica-
ment). Indeed,considerthatthe way in which thatprehistorycontinuesto happenis that
every time I enunciatemyself, I undergosomethingof what cannotbe capturedor as-
similatedby that"I,"thatI always come too late to myself (rememberNietzsche's bees)
and, in thatsense, can never providethe accountof myself which both certainforms of
moralityas well as models of mental health require,namely,that the self deliver itself
throughcoherentnarrative.The "I"is the momentof failurein every narrativeeffort to
give an accountof oneself. It remainsthe unaccountedfor and,in thatsense, constitutes
the failure that the very project of self-narrationrequires.It is the failure that every
effort to give an accountof oneself is boundto encounterand upon which it founders.
To tell the storyof oneself is alreadyto act, since telling is a kind of action, and it is
performedwith some addressee,generalizedor specific, as an implied feature of this
action. So it is an action in the directionof an Other,but also an action that requiresan
Other,for which an Otheris presupposed.The Otheris thus in the action of my telling,
andso it is not simply a questionof impartinginformationto an Otherwho is over there,
beyond me, waiting to know. On the contrary,the telling is the performingof an action
that presupposesan Other,posits and elaboratesthe Other,is given to the Other,or by
virtueof the Other,priorto the giving of any information.So if, at the beginning-and
we must laugh here, since we cannotnarratethatbeginningwith any kind of authority,
indeed, such a narrationis the occasion in which we lose whatevernarrativeauthority
we might otherwiseenjoy-I am only in the address to you, then the "I"which I am is
nothing withoutthis "you,"and cannoteven begin to referto itself outside the relation
to the Otherby which its capacity for self-referenceemerges. I am mired, given over.
Even the word "dependency"cannot do the job here.And what this means is that I am
also formed in ways that precede and enable my self-forming and that this particular
kind of transitivityis difficult, if not impossible, to narrate.
So what will responsibilitylook like accordingto such a theory?And haven't we,
by insisting on something non-narrativizable,limited the degree to which we might
hold ourselves or others accountablefor their actions? I want to suggest that the very
meaning of responsibilitymust be rethoughton this basis; it cannotbe tied to the con-
ceit of transparency.Indeed, to take responsibilityfor oneself is to avow the limits of
any self-understandingandto establishthis limit not only as a conditionfor the subject,
but as the predicamentof the humancommunityitself. But I am not altogetherout of the
loop of the Enlightenmentif I say, as I do, thatreason'slimit is the sign of ourhumanity.
It might even be understoodas a legacy of Kantto say so. My accountof myself breaks
down, and surely for a reason, but that does not mean that I can supply all the reasons
that would make my account whole. There are reasons that course throughme that I
cannotfully recuperate,thatremainenigmatic,that abide with me as my own, familiar
alterity,my own private,or not so private,opacity.I speak as an "I,"but do not makethe
mistakeof thinkingthatI know precisely all thatI am doing when I speak in thatway. I
find that my very formationimplicates the Other in me, that my own foreignness to
myself is, paradoxically,the source of my ethical connection with others. Do I need to
38
sism of conscience is still a narcissism.And as a narcissism,it recoils from the Other,
fromimpressionability,susceptibility,vulnerability.The myriadformsof badconscience
thatFreudand Nietzsche analyze so deftly show us thatmoralizingforms of subjectiv-
ity harness the very impulses they seek to curb. Moreover,they show that the very
instrumentof repressionis wrought from those impulses, creating a tautological cir-
cuitry in which impulse feeds the very law by which it is prohibited.But is there a
theorizationof responsibilitybeyondbad conscience?To the extentthatbad conscience
withdrawsthe subject into narcissism, to that degree it works against responsibility,
precisely because it forecloses upon the primaryrelation to alterityby which we are
animated.What might it mean to undergoviolation, to insist upon not resolving grief
and vulnerabilitytoo quickly into violence, and to practice,as an experimentin living
otherwise,nonviolencein an emphaticallynonreciprocalresponse?Whatwould it mean
in the face of violence to refuse to returnit? Perhapswe mighthave to think,along with
Levinas, that self-preservationis not the highest goal, and the defense of a narcissistic
point of view, not the most urgentpsychic need. That we are impingedupon primarily
and againstour will is the sign of a vulnerabilityand a beholdennessthatwe cannotwill
away. We can defend against it only by prizing the asociality of the subject over and
againstits difficultandintractable,even sometimesunbearable,relationality.Whatmight
it mean to make an ethic from the region of the unwilled? It might mean that one does
not foreclose uponthatprimaryexposureto the Other,thatone does not try to transform
the unwilled into the willed, but to take the very unbearabilityof exposure as the sign,
the reminder,of a common vulnerability,a common physicality,a common risk.
It is always possible to say, "Oh,some violence was done to me, and this gives me
full permissionto act underthe sign of 'self-defense."' Many atrocitiesare committed
underthe sign of a "self-defense"that,preciselybecause it achieves a permanentethical
justification for retaliation,knows no end, and can have no end. Such a strategyhas
developed an infinite way to rename its aggression as suffering, and so provides an
infinitejustificationfor its aggression.Or it is possible to say thatI or we have brought
this violence upon ourselves, and so to accountfor it throughrecourseto our deeds, as
if we believed in the omnipotenceof ourdeeds. Indeed,guilt of this sortexacerbatesour
sense of omnipotencesometimes underthe very sign of its critique.Violence is neither
a just punishmentwe suffernor a just revengefor what we suffer.It delineatesa physi-
cal vulnerabilityfrom which we cannot slip away, which we cannot finally resolve in
the name of the subject,but which can providea way to understandthe way in which all
of us are alreadynot precisely bounded,not precisely separate,but in our skins, given
over, in each other'shands, at each other'smercy.This is a situationwe do not choose;
it forms the horizon of choice, and it is that which groundsour responsibility.In this
sense, we are not responsiblefor it, but it is thatfor which we are neverthelessrespon-
sible.
WORKS CITED
Abrams,Meyer Howard.TheMirrorand the Lamp:RomanticTheoryand the Critical
Tradition.Oxford:Oxford UP, 1953.
Cavarero,Adriana. Relating Narratives: Storytelling and Selfhood. Trans. Paul A.
Kottman.New York:Routledge, 2000.
Felman, Shoshana.The Scandal of the SpeakingBody. Stanford:StanfordUP, 2003.
Foucault,Michel. Fearless Speech.Ed. JosephPearson.New York:Semiotext(e),2001.
Hegel, G. W. F. Phenomenologyof Spirit.Trans.A. V. Miller.Oxford:OxfordUP, 1977.
Kafka,Franz."TheJudgment."A CountryDoctor.Trans.KevinBlahut.Prague:Twisted
Spoon, 1997.
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