This paper identifies the underlying factors at work in the process of negotiation between western and non-western modes of thought. A philosophical examination, taking the Israeli political arena as a case study, may clarify the notion of leadership responsibility practiced under pressure of antagonism as epitomized by diverse types of reasoning.
Following Heidegger’s distinction between 1) calculative thought inspired by the scientific tradition, and 2) contemplative thought associated with authentic imagination, we can categorize democratic regimes into two groups.
The first refers to states (such as the U.S.A, or England), where each of the main leading groups is perceived as conforming to the ethos of calculative thought.
The second group includes states where the political-ideological game reflects a struggle between the two above-mentioned patterns of thought.
In calculative thinking, the human self-image is typified as an autonomous individual, while contemplative thought is characterized by those considering themselves ‘spoken subjects.’
Calculative thought becomes possible assuming that the human being is capable of reacting to reality in a reasonable manner, according to data or other kinds of information bytes issuing from TV or computer screens.
Representational thinking which is privileged by most of us, treats reality as if it were a picture “placed before” the subject. Scientific thought is linked to representational thinking in keeping with the view describing language as a ‘vocabulary of things,’ the matching of a name to a thing.
Calculative thinking which finds its most powerful expression in modern scientific rhetoric is motivated by the prospect of improving measurements and assessments in order to manipulate and control. Hence, the whole feedback machinery is directed at enlarging future predictability. The fact is that people living in liberal, democratic states are accustomed to assessing their state of affairs, according to observable quantified indicators. This serves to alleviate demagogic trends directed by propaganda and advertisement.
We should not identify calculative reasoning with scientific thought, since the occupation of science may be seen as the learning of our surroundings by amazement and curiosity; while calculative thought projects upon making predictions, controlling the present order and dominating most possible subsequent change.
Contemplative thought, on the contrary, does not seek to measure but to uncover the meaning of things. It is linked to what Heidegger calls authentic philosophy, and should not be confused with magic thought.
Contemplative thought is close to the hermeneutic tradition, reminiscent of Jewish Talmudic learning which presumes seventy faces to the Tora.
Calculative thinking is inseparable from the liberal humanism that characterizes human beings as individuals. The term ‘individual’ presupposes human beings as intellectual agents, free thinkers who are not coerced by their actual historical, cultural or socio-political circumstances. The ‘Individual’ attempts to reveal the transcendental order which lies beyond him. According to this view ‘Individuals’ are fully conscious, and can experience self-knowledge.
The term ‘Individual’ refers to something quite different from the term ‘subject’, it conceives human beings to be products of metaphoric devices and the signifying chain “The World is created by The Word.” The category of ‘Subject’ however questions the notion of self as synonymous with consciousness. It is quite obvious that conceptualizing human beings as subjects coincides with orthodox Jewish assumptions. However, the Israeli secular Jew, is taught to ignore non-western styles of thought as inferior. He is not familiar with other existing types of thought such as Jewish orthodoxy, or Islamic and other oriental styles of reasoning.
Calculative thinking according to Heidegger, manifests a human betrayal which exemplifies the forgetfulness of Being. This forgetfulness reveals a basic need for certainty and an urge for prescriptive, scientific guidance, defined under the slogan that “Only what is counted counts.”
The project of calculative political reasoning assumes that as more facts or mass media information are shared, there is more knowledge to be stored for governing better choices and reliable judgments.
According to Heidegger there is an unbridgeable “gap” between the two forms of thought. This does not mean that contemplative thought is better. But the problem is that calculative thought thrusts aside other forms of thinking as inferior.
The contemplative form of thought which refers to modes of language like free conversation, poetics, literature, music or everyday language, includes a portrayal of occurrences without there being any determinate rules for description. In Kant’s philosophy these genres refer to the principle of productive imagination. Contrary to calculative styles of thought where questions are aimed at a definite response, what counts in non-western traditions of thought, like for instance the Judaic tradition, is to remain questioned by the text and stay responsive to it through meditation. ‘Studying’ and ‘learning’ requires that reality be treated as an obscure message addressed by an unnamable agency. One must listen to the verse of the Tora, decipher and interpret it, and keep in mind that this interpretation will itself be interpreted as a message no less enigmatic. So, in the end, the prominent scholar’s reading is what determines the law.
In western regimes, where the political leader claims to be the guarantor of the event, he who controls the rules, then decision making might be authoritarian as well.
Israeli democracy, which pretends to be inspired by the common values of the free western world, reflects an aporetic controversy between democracy and Judaism. An aporia that originates in the two distinguished philosophical perspectives.
Israeli society manifests a split between those two opposing views concerning the nature of reason, knowledge, choice and judgment. This aporia is not recognized in the Christian world, because Christianity conceives of human beings as individuals. In Christianity, secular law precedes religious law. The Jewish idea of the link however reflects a total fusion between the two. Thus in Islam and Judaism secular and religious law are united under the command of a divine authority.
Lyotard’s concept of ‘The Differend’ marks the rift between these two modes of thought. ‘The Differend’ relates to a case of conflict which cannot be resolved due to the ‘lack of a rule of judgment applicable to two discourses.’ The concept of ‘The Differend’ condemn calculative thinking as a representational discourse that refers exclusively to the correspondence between the observable and the non-observable, so that any coherent non-observable presentation is ignored. ‘The Differend’ is an awareness of unmarked communication, it stresses the idea of language as a limitation of reality. It signals silence, and it is the moment of silence which signifies otherness.
At this point I shall focus upon Levinas’ treatise concerning the concept of otherness and responsibility toward the other. Levinas’ ethics which proceeds from Heidegger’s philosophy and is charged by theology, is not perceived as a professional, specialized pursuit, but rather a condition of authentic, personal life. For Levinas the understanding of Being, is that which gives man’s being its meaning of humanity. Human self-definition defines empathy towards the other as a virtue, which cannot be encompassed in terms of knowledge or any other means of representational thinking. Ethics, the face to face relation with the other, is non-representational by its very nature. Language acts primarily as a candid means of relating to the transcendence of the other. In Levinas’ terminology the word is a ‘saying’ which means an ethical event (contrary to the said which refers to the propositional content). It means that making face to face contact precedes all determinate communication. The act of saying means the taking of responsibility for the conduct of communication. Responsibility on the part of the knower precedes any relation to knowing. The human subject ceases to be understood as the subject of his own mind and turns to become the subject of language and ethical demands. It therefore comes as no surprise that Levinas’ ethic, built upon Jewish texts, is ignored as a philosophical oddity in Israeli academic pigeonholes.
Heidegger precedes Levinas on the notion of otherness. While Levinas associates the Hebrew words for ‘responsibility’ (??????) with ‘otherness’ (?????), Heidegger links the word responsibility to ‘response,’ as connected with ‘ability.’ These two aspects of the concept of responsibility fit the activepassive interplay.
For Levinas, responsibility means an empathic ability to respond to otherness, marking a shift from the active towards the passive side. Eevidently, Israeli politics reveals a sharp inclination toward the active pole in the response-ability interplay. The Israeli response to Palestinian provocation delineates acts which oscillate between restraint and controlled aggression. These two articulations illustrate the distinction between an attentive response to otherness and treating the other as an object.
The concept of ‘otherness’ as ‘alterity’ in Levinas’ ethics does not view the ‘other’ as an extension of my-self, but stresses the absolute other that is above me. Heidegger, Levinas and Derrida;s diversion from traditional humanism means that the human ‘other’ stops being an object of inquiry. Levinas describes the other as somebody who is totally unknown to my self, and it is my responsibility to secure the ‘other’s urge to define his identity on his own terms. But since articulation of a common will necessitates stratification of the population according to predifined criteria of identity, the cancellation of the other’s ‘self definition’ challenges the poll culture as a whole.
I argue that most minorities’ rebellions originate in that aggressive compulsion to define the identity of ‘others.’ In Israel it is exemplified by the Israeli Arabs’ riots and Jewish orthodoxy’s resistance to this arrogant authoritarian policy. We can trace the attempt to delineate other groups’ essential needs for self definition, in Israeli efforts to cause the Palestinians to replace their leadership.
In the case of Israel despite, the fact that the population is divided between the two antagonistic discursive genres, the enlightened authorities attempt to outline the profile of the population’s common will by utilizing polls’ technology. Hence, according to the view that language forms the socialized human being as a ‘subject,’ we should admit the conclusion, that it is the manifestation of an absolute case of a Differend.
Ruled by database reports, calculative thought is doomed to forget ethical and moral values. So if responsibility points to what cannot be controlled, then the polls’ attempt to control prediction can be seen as irresponsibility. An advanced culture of efficiency and control may “get out of control” because it disregards ‘otherness.’
We may say that the notion of alter(ity) as the face which is above me is unrecognized by the calculative thinker. Public opinion polls indisputable invasion into the public sphere exhibits immorality simply because it blurs the individual face. Ironically, the great believer in human individuality is led astray by the promise of a scientific method which will safeguard objectivity and neutrality in the decision making process. Disrespect for the voter is precisely what is displayed by using the poll apparatus that erases his unique face. The citizen of the liberal-democratic state is thus cynically manipulated by the corresponding machinery of matching polls’ data with candidates’ profiles, and thus falls victim to his naive belief in free choice.
By deconstructing the word person, we shall reveal that the notion of person originates in the Latin word persona, which means a mask, a concealment of the human face. Poll culture replaces face to face contact with an indifferent anonymous entity. The crowd-will substitutes paying attention to people’s personal desires. It leads to a forgetfulness of response-ability towards ‘otherness.’ Imposing anonymity on the citizen’s face, and compelling digital modes of thinking on communities which their typical style of life is characterized by analogue (non-puctuated) modes of learning, constitute an inhuman act. To enforce techno-scientific reasoning on people committed to be constantly inspired by intuitive, heuristic, hermeneutic insight reveals a growing bluntness. It affects insensibility concerning human rights and equality. In the case of Israel it eliminates empathy for the misery of non-Jewish minorities in favor of keeping Israel as a national home for the holocaust survivors. Israeli democracy is an odd phenomenon. While pretending to be a civic society guided by western law Israel, at the same time, under the guise of calculative thought, violates human rights and equality.
Since leadership should represent all sections of the population, the more leadership declares a calculative politics of progress, the more it reflects opacity towards what are considered non-western forms of thought. Leadership reacts in an irresponsible way, which ends with dehumanization and even demonization of the non-western opponent. It legitimizes the use of the most ultra-modern technological implements of war from nuclear bombs to F16 missiles, as if there is more humanism in killing with modern weapons then when using primitive methods like stones or bullets?
Calculative thought, evident in democratic countries marks two kinds of leadership: one is defined as rational and ‘enlightened,’ the ‘other’ is considered reactionary or fundamentalist. Since the Israeli political arena exemplifies the case of a Differend, it becomes an impossible mission for an Israeli prime minister to navigate within such antagonistic streams. The fact is that most Israeli political leaders materialize calculative reasoning which thrusts aside all other thought as inferior. Most of them are products of the military high command, lacking any civic cultural experience, so they exemplify a disastrous combination. I shall assume that only an educated leader, one blessed with a productive imagination and able to internalize the complementary relationship between the two modes of thought, would be the one able to prove response-ability.
Despite the belief that the accumulation of vast amounts of information improves the reasoning power, we learn that there is an unbridgeable gulf between statements about a group and statements about a singular entity. These two kinds of statements belong to different logical types, so that projecting from one to the other is not guaranteed in principle and is trapped in a paradoxical ‘DOUBLE-BIND’ message. As control of the system is strengthened, it becomes more predictable at the expense of diminishing perception with regard to the singular entity. Consequently, the group which is deterministic by character, attempts to harness the unpredictable individuality within the limits of the average.
In western countries, where respondents’ reliability is taken for granted, polls’ predictions are considered valid. In Israel the young secular generation considered ‘enlightened’ by science and technology, is easily persuaded by data findings. Orthodox youngsters however, inspired by the Talmudic tradition of scholarship, are more familiar with deductive styles of inference and not influenced by the polls. Thus they have no commitment to the scientific truth, and exploit the polls as a subtle self-fulfilling prophetic mechanism against their rivals.
This matter is relevant to the fallacy of political and historical anticipation. It stresses the fact that one person acting in an unpredictable manner might change the path of history, it rather points to the fact that “every vote counts.”
The traditional prevailing position views responsibility as linked to increasing the power of predictability. But since predictability is clearly associated with the unforeseen, we may ironically conclude that enchantment with the certainty bestowed by “scientific” predictability can actually be taken as a refusal to confront responsibility. The fragile state of latter-day democracies is conditioned upon keeping in mind that predictions are forecasts, nothing more than false prophecies.