Levinas: a European philosopher

It's election time, and what's more: time for European elections. Newsmakers are doing their utmost to promote interest in European affairs – or to provoke discussion pro or contra, which is perhaps quite an effective way to stifle any latent interest in what really matters there. But luckily my newspaper also offered  information about an original approach in the Rotterdam Filmfestival opening next wednesday, with as its main theme The State of Europe. A title implicating a subtle reference to the evident fact that Europe is not a State but a cultural phenomenon : a unity in diversity showing all kinds of strategies and tactics for dealing with potentially encumbering differences. With the experience-based expectation that Film is possibly the best medium for showing examples of what may happen in and between people in various circumstances.

 

Though not an active film-adept myself I was interested, until it reminded me of a message I recently received about the problem of introducing 'French philosophy' in the English-speaking world. And thinking of Levinas, as I usually do, I suddenly thought: but he is not a French philosopher, but a European one. That is why I explicitely based my website in .eu! I did so originally because of my wish [and the necessity, I think] to promote discussion and cooperation between Levinas-readers, used to working in different European languages. But I now realise that the original impulse in this direction came from the way Levinas has been 'practicing philosophy' – writing in French as a second, or even third language that he enjoyed searching and researching for levels of meaning going deeper than in daily use. 

It made me also think of his unique use of the term 'not-indifferent' for those special moments when one finds oneself being responsible for someone else. Someone who maybe once would have appeared different to me, until he or she – or that kind of person – had left me indifferent, and then… Maybe some lines, roughly copied from a late work by Paul Klee, may help to illustrate the sensations one may undergo in such a case when one spontaineously exclaims: 'Oh my goodness…!'