Jaques Derrida

One of the world's most famous philosophers, Jacques Derrida, explores difficult questions in this important and engaging book. Is it still possible to uphold international hospitality and justice in the face of increasing nationalism and civil strife in so many countries? Drawing on examples of treatment of minority groups in Europe, he skilfully and accessibly probes the thinking that underlies much of the practice, and rhetoric, that informs cosmopolitanism. What have duties and rights to do with hospitality? Should hospitality be grounded on a private or public ethic, or even a religious one? This fascinating book will be illuminating reading for all.

On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness

César Steven Toribio

I'll refer mainly to the second part, 'On Forgiveness'. The first part, 'On Cosmopolitanism' it's also very interesting and deals with matters very pertinent to today's refugee crisis, it deals with concepts such a refuge cities acting in a some kind of alliance both beyond the State and out of it.

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Though getting one's head around the idea that only the unforgivable is actually what's worth forgiving is not the easiest thing (at least from a moral perspective) to do, but it makes sense. This, as one might expect, deals with forgiveness beyond the simple personal conflict level, and goes into really heinous stuff: the Holocaust / Shoah, the Apartheid in South Africa and other cases of systematic acts of violence and genocide. If one (and I mean the people that suffered through) might not be able to deal with forgiving such things then the concept of forgiveness itself is possibly not worth that much (I am writing this from a bit of a depersonalised [not sure if that's even the right word] perspective because I can't say how I would react, as a person, to the prospect of forgiveness in such situations). 

I had not considered the Abrahamic origin of forgiveness (in this case), and how it has been secularised and basically universalised, now being used beyond its religious origins in a multitude of contexts (mainly political) and in cultural settings which don't have Abrahamic heritage (societies which are not mainly Christian, Jewish or Islamic, like places in East Asia).

Also something that I found very interesting, is the claim by other authors (Derrida mentions Hannah Arendt and Vladimir Jankélévitch) that forgiveness is only possible when one can judge and punish thus making forgiveness the act of an institution with the power to do so, namely a Court, namely a State or Sovereign institution or an institution given said powers by a State or group of them, but there's an issue with that (says Derrida), and it is that such institutions can't really forgive, they can punish, they can give amnesty, they can initiate the reconciliation, but they can't forgive. Only the victim can do that.

Forgiveness, to be so, has to come from the one who suffered the wrongful action, and has to be unconditional, expecting nothing, not even the regret or repent of the other part, basically an act of madness. Now, I wonder, is such forgiveness in benefit of the perpetrator or of the victim?

Trever

3.5. Before I say anything I have to admit two things:

1. I've always kind of dismissed Derrida as a pretentious incomprehensible language theorist, but after finding out about his late ethical period and reading this I really need to reconsider my stance; in other words, he's far from being Bataille.

2. I found this book through a Goodreads "people also liked" list and only initially hovered over it because of the cool looking cover, but the title and the concept grabbed me.

Now:

While I didn't grab everything here, I think if I reread it I'll get even more out of it. I do admire Derrida's effort and the concepts I grasped I think I mostly agreed with, especially in the Cosmopolitanism section, because the Forgiveness, while interesting, aren't applicable to a political system. Nonetheless I think I might read more of Derrida's ethics work.

On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness

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