Useless Suffering: Learning From the Unintelligible and the

Re-Formation of Community

LISA FARLEY Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,

University of Toronto

ABSTRACT: This pape r draws on the philosophical works of E m m a n u e l Levinas - namely, his notion of"use less suffering" - in order to open up questions of l ea rn ing and communi ty beyond typical configurations tha t s t ruc ture (and somet imes limit) social a t t a c h m e n t s according to a requis i te degree of commonali ty . I t is a rgued tha t while discourses of knowledge and emotion enable a sense of unde r s t and ing and i~eling wi th others , they nonetheless cast differences in a universal ized discourse of en l ightenment , where in the other is reduced to a vers ion of the same. Turn ing to the Lev inas ian notion of"useless suffering," I consider ins tead the conditions of possibili ty opened up paradoxical ly because the other cannot be rendered in pre-given terms. In so doing, I hope to contr ibute to on-going discussions in the context, of feminism and educat ion in te res ted in theorizing the conditions of possibili ty for coming together across differences, ne i ther consuming the o ther as an object of information, nor reducing her or his experience to a vers ion of the self. My a rgum en t is s t ruc tu red a round Lourdes Portil lo 's (2001) most recent film, Missing Young Women, which documents the d isappearance , rape, and m u r d e r of over 200 women working in Juarez , Mexico. One scene in pa r t i cu la r is referenced as a way to underscore how thc Lev inas ian notion of "uselessness" migh t orient a mode of a t ten t iveness t ha t renders one responsible before unders tanding , concerned beibre feeling. Cons t i tu ted as a prior responsibi l i ty for the other, it is sugges ted t ha t "useless suffering" shifts the dominant t e rms of educat ion and feminism away from the format ion of common bonds (in knowledge and emotion) to underscore the conditions of possibil i ty t ha t migh t lie beyond mean ing and being itself.

Interchange, Vol 35/3,325-336, 2004. 9 Academic Pubhshers Printed in the Netherlands.

326 LISA FARLEY

KEYWORDS: Emanuet Levinas, Lourdes Portillo, Missing Young Woman, gender violence, useless suffering, community, feminism, education, ethical philosophy, responsibility.

In an essay entitled, "Useless Suffering," Emmanuel Levinas (1998a) writes, "the suffering of suffering, the suffering for the useless suffering of the other, the just suffering in me for the unjustifiable suffering of the other, opens suffering to the ethical perspective of the in ter-human" (p. 94). A curious s ta tement indeed, it asks tha t we take pause and wonder how suffering can be on one hand useless and at the same time an opening to the ethical. For Levinas (1998a), this contradiction in terms is the very condition of the inter-human S the ethical is only possible when suffering is understood to be useless, for nothing (p. 93). As useless, sufibring mat ters precisely because it cannot make sense and because it lies beyond what the Self can contain. What mat ters in suffering, then, is not the capacity to unders tand it, nor to explain it according to some "grand design" of the universe (p. 96), but to bear the weight of suffering in a "manner of . . . not-being-borne" such tha t the Self is subject to S and responsible for S the Other before its own constitution (p. 92).

This perspective, or "modality" raises questions about the very terms on which we at tend to the suffering of others. Often, it is to make sense o f i t . In making sense, there is a tendency to offer an explanation tha t gives suffering a name, a cause, a context, a location in the world S and in the Self. However, as I will suggest, the turn to meaning also entails a flight from what Levinas (1998a) refers to as "the unassumable" quality of suffering (p. 91). The unassumable is not about knowledge, but the call to responsibility before knowing how or why. It is, then, not only about providing an answer to a question (about suffering), but the more difficult question of answering the call of the Other who suffers. The suffering in the Other opens onto the ethical because its urgency cannot be consoled in meaning; its uselessness constitutes responsibility before and beyond what makes sense.

It is the intention of this paper 1 to consider the possibility of" at tending to the useless suffering of others as an opening to the ethical perspective of the inter-human where one is responsible for the other beyond the capacity to identify or unders tand her or his experience within one's own framework of being in the world. In this endeavour, I contribute to an on-going conversation among feminist theorists in the areas of philosophy and education concerned with the possibility of forming social a t tachments tha t nei ther flatten, nor re-install

USELESS SUFFERING 327

differences within ontological or epistemological terms, but which are ra ther s t ructured around the articulation and evocation of ethical responsibilities implied in self]other relations (Brown, 1995; Shohat, 1998). 2

In particular, I respond to the work of feminist theorists such as Wendy Brown (1995) and Ella Shohat (1998), both of whom have theorized the possibility of mobilizing feminist solidarities in multiplicity and contradiction, before the foreclosure of difference in the now too familiar terms of female identity. Theorizing this possibility has been one a t tempt to move beyond the limited and limiting terms of identity that have been the source of much debate in feminist circles (see Benhabib, Butler, Cornell, & Fraser , 1995). As Brown argues, the formation of community around a discourse of identi ty politics, no mat ter how well intended or politically oriented toward social just ice for w o m e n re-installs the very terms of identi ty as exc lus ion tha t feminism hopes to circumvent. For Shohat, identi ty categories not only flat ten important differences between women, but also limit the possibilities of response to only two: either an assimilation of the other to a version of one's own social category, or a negation on the basis of her necessary difference from the self. In the context of psychoanalytic feminism, Jessica Benjamin (1998) describes this relation as instant ia ted through a process of identification whereby, "the object may be assimilated as like or opposite, taking the form of the split unit, in which self and other are assigned complementary parts tha t can be switched but never held together" (p. 95). In this form of identification, the self and other can only be "held together" as opposites, and so any sense of implication in the life of the other is made in oppos i t i on . What these theorists raise are the different ways in which identi ty categories work to efface difference through a consumption or refusal ofotherness . Taking these important critiques as a s tart ing point, I hope to imagine the possibility of a non-ontological version of community, emerging out of a re- constitution of self/other relations that can bear the weight of the other as o ther before its foreclostlre in pre-fixed categories further a logic of exclusion.

Now, typically the agenda of feminist pedagogy is mobilized around forms of teaching and learning that forge practical solidarities in terms of what subjects have in common: be it a collective moral vision, material experience or shared identifications as w o m e n . Operat ing within an increasingly globalized economy of representation, women's narrat ivcs testifying to the gendered na ture of social suffering have

328 LISA FARLEY

been documented and disseminated through visual media (i.e., film, video, and the Internet) to reveal the political conditions through which such violences are enacted. Significantly, these visual media bring a sense of immediacy to experiences of suffering that might otherwise remain at a safe distance and have thus become important, if not essential as a basis for learning about and forming political alliances across differences. And yet, ra ther than accept the addition of more images to an already crowded space of representat ion as an end in itself, I explore the possibilities of at tending to the representation of the limits of representation as an opening to the ethical.

In this regard, the aforementioned Levinasian notion of useless suffering is of part icular interest , as it raises questions about the sufficiency of narrat ive s t ructures of knowledge and identification as organizing principles around which to mobilize critical learning and political solidarity. Rather than taking for granted solidarities formed in sameness, whereby affiliations across difference are const i tuted in and through one's identification with conventional social configurations of identity, community, and nation; the uselessness of suffering that Levinas theorizes implies a mode of relat ionali ty hinged upon one's infinite responsibility for the other beyond and in spite of such terms. 3 Through Levinas then, I hope to think about forms of learning and political solidarity that disrupt and t ransform the pre-established frames of how and what people learn and know about the world and their implication in it. Thus, my over-riding question is: How might the uselessness of suffering re-orient the possibility of receiving narra t ives of social suffering such that they are nei ther distant, :nor consumed in terms of my own experiences, bu t which are brought to bear on my life as an exposure to vulnerability, teaching me how I might live be t te r with others in the world?

In this endeavour, I explore the pedagogical and ethical implications of Lourdes Portillo's (2001) most recent film, Missing Young Woman, which documents the disappearance, rape, and murder of hundreds of women working in Maquiladoras (United States owned factories) s i tuated in Juarez, Mexico. As i will argue, the pedagogy of this film does the important work of exposing the gendered nature of political and economic exploitation in the context of globalization. And yet, in so doing, I suggest that it nonetheless works to enact a similar form of violence, consuming within a larger f ramework of ontology the radical alteri ty ofotherness, which, in its "unassumibility" is the very beginning of intelligibility and a necessary condition for the formation of new

USELESS SUFFERING 329

ethical and political social a t tachments across difference (Levinas, 1998a, p. 91). My hope is thus to consider what there is to learn from what cannot be understood: namely, how the non-thematizable experience of suffering might interrupt existing forms of production and consumption that fur ther isolates us from each other.

The Promise of Pedagogy: On Making Suffering Intelligible

A familiar educational imperative tells us to make the lives and experiences of others relevant, helping s tudents to make sense of the unfamiliar in a way that can be incorporated within a meaningful framework. In the interest of forming a t tachments across difference, and in the name of inciting concern about social suffering, this is indeed an important agenda. For pedagogies concerned with social justice, knowledge is thus more than information; it is a necessary condition for the development of critical thought about the dominant terms that produce and order differences differently. Portillo's (2001) film seems to initiate such a relationship with viewers, as it documents specific ways in which the t ransnat ional flow of capital and labour is played out on women's bodies, often, as the film graphically details, with fatal consequences.

Through interviews with MaquiIadoras workers, the families of the disappeared as well as the legal representat ive of women's rights in Juarez, viewers learn about the production and destruct ion of female workers in the machine of corporate globalization. An impor tant agenda indeed, the film reveals multiple layers of implication including the involvement of the police (or lack thereof), dealers in the drug trade, governmental officials, and (Western) consumers of products produced in the Maquiladoras. In this sense, the pedagogy of the film renders intelligible the violent effects of a global culture tha t s t ructures inter- human relationships around a model of consumption ra the r than responsibili ty for others. In Levinasian terms, this f ramework reduces "the astonishing al ter i ty of the other ... to a simple exchange of courtesies that has become established as an ' interpersonal commerce' of customs" (Levinas, 1998a, p. 101). And while the murder of hundreds of women can never be characterized as an exchange of courtesies, the film underscores the effacement of alteri ty inherent the interpersonal commerce of global culture, which flat tens the radical alteri ty of difference that, for Levinas, is the necessar~y condition for ethicality.

330 LISA FARLEY

And yet, even as the film exposes the hegemony of corporate globalization, it at the same time mediates a viewing relationship of a similar kind, enabling and enabled by an interpersonal commerce tha t structures women's lives within narrat ive terms: to be re-presented as victims of economic power and political oppression. Ironically, in its a t tempt to situate social suffering in the broader context of gender violence, the film works to invite viewers into another violent relation, wherein the suffering other can be cast outside of the self, to be more easily absorbed within a cathartic trajectory of a shared moral vision to end violence against women. In this way, viewers are allowed entry into the experience of suffering as "rescuer," displacing the more difficult work of encountering one's own implication in structures of oppression as well as one's responsibility to respond beyond and in spite of their structural positioning in relation to others, too often at a safe distance.

The structure of the film is thus not unlike the structures of corporate globalization which make these murders possible in the first place, as it reduces the al teri ty of each woman to a series of case examples which, while evoking political awareness, frames what is otherwise unintelligible within familiar binary terms of the autonomous 'T' and its subordinate, the dis tant suffering other. In the section tha t follows, I consider an encounter of a different kind wherein social responsibility and learning are enabled through an "exposure to another in disinterestedness, proximity, [and] obsession by the neighbour, [which is] an obsession despite oneself ' (Levinas, 1998b, p. 55). As I will suggest, it is this passivity despite oneself which evokes a relationship of non-indifference, as it interrupts any sense of the ego as complacent, isolated, and benign.

The Uselessness of Suffering: Learning from the Failed Promise of Intelligibility

It might now be clear tha t I want to add to the arena of representation, a consideration of how the unintelligibility of suffering might re-orient the terms of responsibility from the self as rescuer, to a receptivity of being addressed, awakened, or called into consciousness by the radical al teri ty of the other. In this way, it is my interest to consider what it might mean to encounter the suffering other through what Levinas (1998a) describes as a, "sensibility [that] is a vulnerability, more passive than receptivity, an encounter even more passive than experience" (p. 92). In this regard, I ask: What might it mean to form in ter -human relationships, not around a knowledge of experience or the intelligibility

USELESS SUFFERING 331

of suffering, but as an encounter even more passive than experience? How might in ter-human relationships disrupt and transform dominant systems of signification tha t structure responsibility in terms of one's capacity to thematize and consume difference on one's own terms?

As I have argued, the pedagogy of Miss ing Young Woman (Portillo, 2001) establishes a relationship with viewers tha t renders suffering intelligible and thus frames the possibility for political solidarity and social justice in terms of one's capacity to unders tand with the other2 It is not tha t I disagree with the film's aim to mobilize political solidarity, but the tendency of such an agenda is to frame these women's lives in terms tha t do not touch or change the ways in which we live and relate to others in the world, here and now. To il lustrate the possibility of an alternative kind of response, I provide a reading of one scene in the fihn tha t I believe interrupts the structures of identification and, or cathartic vision of female solidarity around which the film is mobilized. ~ In this scene, Maria testifies to her experience of rape, but as well, describes in painful detail being photographed by her perpetrators as they commit their multiple acts of sexual assault. Also described is their sense of fearlessness of documenting these crimes: the relative ease and arrogance of their performance in front of the camera's lens.

Quite different from the pedagogy of the film, Maria's testimony disrupts the consumption of' the suffering other as a victim of gender violence in global culture.

As witnesses to Maria's test imony of being photographed, viewers become implicated in the spectacle of looking, positioned as consumers of social suffering not so unlike Maria's rapists. 6 Exposed in this moment are the ways in which the terms of spectacle ul t imately reduce viewers' "response-ability" to the illusion of political activity merely by virtue of looking (Simon, 2000, p. 66). In this sense, Maria's test imony is more than an example of gender violence, but an encounter tha t disrupts the totali ty of the film's pedagogy, re turning the gaze of the spectator back onto itself. This displacement of the Self, or what Levinas (1998a) has referred to as, a "backward consciousness" suggests tha t suffering is more than a "datum in consciousness" (p. 91); it defies content. It is then a question of one's a prior responsibility for the Other. Perhaps Maria's test imony speaks on such terms, staging an encounter with the uselessness of suffering such tha t being S and witnessing S is constituted as a responsibility to a t tend to the Other in spite of one's own identifications and experiences (Robbins, 200 la , p. 119). 7 This does not mean tha t there is nothing to do, nor tha t social a t tachments are

332 LISA FARLEY

impossible. It is to reverse the notion of being itself so tha t its activity is meaningful only in its passivity before the Other.

Maria's testimony thus interrupts the smooth consumption of the visual narrat ive as an unmedia ted source of information, rendering explicit the ethical limits of framing social suffering in ontological or epistemological terms tha t can reduce the other to a version of me or too-easy dismissal as not-me. Positioned instead as the third party in the viewing relationship, viewers are called to witness themselves as witnesses to what has already happened, and so which cannot be stopped or changed, but still requires a response. In this regard, Maria's test imony addresses viewers precisely because she calls a t tent ion to the insufficiency of relational forms tha t frame responsibility in epistemological terms.

Significantly, the Levinasian ethical relation, described above as, more passive than experience, is not, as it might seem, indifferent. As I have argued, it re-orients the terms of response away from a comfortable complacency of being to one of vulnerability, a radical exposure to alterity tha t shifts the terms of how one is positioned in relation to others. This mode of at tentiveness oriented toward, or in Levinasian terms, for-the-other raises particular questions for pedagogy and the formation of community. As an encounter with the passivity of experience, an exposure to the unintelligibility of suffering, it asks tha t pedagogy consider what it would mean to encounter the disruptions of learning and breakdowns of meaning tha t are too often the embarrassment of education. Thus, my final question: What might it mean to si tuate the uselessness of suffering as the organizing principle around which to s tructure learning and to re-form in ter -human connections across difference? S or, s tated more plainly: What might education learn from tha t which it cannot unders tand?

Learning From Suffering: Community as Displacement and Responsibility for the Other

Throughout this paper, I have a t tempted to show how framing social suffering within a structure of intelligibility, while important for the documentation of the empirical reali ty of gender violence and the formation of practical solidarities, nonetheless re-installs the binary terms of self/other tha t enable such violences in the first place. It has been my argument tha t by promoting unders tanding over alterity, uti l i ty over uselessness, agency over passivity, and voice over reception, political projects risk subsuming encounters with difference to the pre-

USELESS SUFFERING 333

existing notion of the autonomous 'T' in its distinction from the dis tant other. But if, as Levinas (1998a) proposes, we encounter suffering as useless, as tha t which cannot be understood, it becomes possible to approach the other not only in terms the self can recognize, but through "the jus t suffering in me:" a mode of at tentiveness which does not claim to know suffering, but which is vulnerable to its address (p. 94). Rather than consume difference, this encounter as suffering in me is commanded by the radical alterity of the other, and thus demands a re- thinking of the conditions and structures tha t shape (and limit) how I am positioned and called upon to respond.

On such terms, subjects might not only learn about the lives of others, but also, enter into a relation tha t is fundamenta l ly a susceptibility to learning from and living for the other. Quite different from empathetic at tempts to suffer as the other, or feminist solidarities mobilized on gendered terms, the uselessness of suffering evokes a relation installed through the capacity to bear the weight of vulnerabili ty inherent in the self/other relation. Through Levinas then, it has been my hope to consider how the unintelligibility of suffering might hold open a discursive space of learning from and living for others which does not t ranscend the mater ial experiences and social conditions of violence but rather , enables a momenta ry displacement of such terms wherein in ter-human identifications might be re-thought and transformed.

N O T E S 1. This paper draws on Emmanuel Levinas not as an attempt to apply his ethical philosophy to notions of learning and community, but to consider how his notion of "useless suffering" in particular might open up new questions of responsibility in the context of gender violence and explores how such questions might contribute to the re-formation of feminist solidarities on such terms. Elsewhere, Levinas's use of the notion of "the feminine" has been read in terms of masculine bias, and thus I am aware that my turn to his work in the context of re-thinking feminist solidarity might be interpreted by some as a return to the very notions of femininity that perpetuate gender violence in the first place. And yet, my intent is to consider how Levinas's move away from sociological categories (such as gender) might gesture toward an ethical sensibility despite ontological (i.e. gendered) notions of being in the world. 2. In particular, I respond to the work of feminist theorists such as Wendy Brown (1995) and Ella Shohat (1998), both of whom have theorized the possibility of mobilizing feminist solidarities in multiplicity and

334 LISA FARLEY

contradiction, before the foreclosure of difference in the now too fami l ia r t e rms of female identity. Theorizing this possibil i ty has been one a t t e m p t to move beyond the l imited and l imi t ing t e rms of ident i ty t ha t have been the source of much debate in feminis t circles (for an in-depth discussion of this debate, see Seyla Benhabib, J ud i t h Butler , Drucil la Cornell, and Nancy F ra se r in Feminis t Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange, 1995). As Brown (1995) argues, the format ion of communi ty a round a discourse of iden t i ty politics, no m a t t e r how well- intended or poli t ically-oriented toward social just ice for women re- instal ls the very t e rms of ident i ty as exclusion t ha t feminism hopes to circumvent . For Shoha t (1998), ident i ty categories not only f la t ten impor t an t differences be tween women, but also l imit the possibilities of response to only two: e i ther an ass imi la t ion of the other to a version of one's own social category, or an expulsion of difference on the basis of he r necessary dis tance from the self. In both instances, on such terms, the self/other relat ion violates difference th rough a consumpt ion or refusal of otherness . Following the impor t an t cri t iques offered by theor is ts l ike Brown and Shohat , I hope to imagine the possibil i ty of a non- ontological version of communi ty , emerg ing out of a re-const i tut ion of self/other re la t ions tha t can bear the weight of the other as other before its foreclosure in pre-fixed categories of identi ty, communi ty or nat ion. 3. For Levinas, "responsibi l i ty for the other is the or iginary place of identification" where in one is "seized s t r a igh t away in one's i r reducible uniqueness" (Robbins, 2001b, p. 110). W h a t I wish to emphas ize here is the a prior responsibi l i ty tha t underscores the Lev inas ian ethical re la t ion outside of, or in spite of one's m e m b e r s h i p to any pre-given ident i ty category. 4. Levinas (1998c) refers to a s imi lar re la t ion in t e rms of sys t ems of language: "Language can be construed as in te rna l discourse and can a lways bc equated wi th the ga ther ing of a l te r i ty into the un i ty of presence by the I of the in tent ional I think. Even if the other enters into this l anguage S which is indeed possible S l inkage to the egological work of r ep resen ta t ion is not in t e r rup ted by this entry" (Levinas, 1998c, p. 162). It is m y in tent ion to consider v isual encounters which b reakdown the unity o f presence th rough an exposure of the conditions of vu lnerabi l i ty t ha t const i tu te the Levinas ian ethical relation. 5. I am not mak i ng the claim tha t this is the only read ing of the film, nor of this scene in par t icular . Rather , I provide a read ing of Mar ia ' s t e s t imony as a way to i l lus t ra te an encounter wi th a l te r i ty tha t , in its unknowabi l i ty , signifies an exposure to vulnerabi l i ty t ha t underscores the Lev inas i an ethical relat ion. Significantly, this re la t ion is not opposed to meaning , but a k ind of sensibil i ty t ha t signifies as vulnerabi l i ty: "a sense somewhere else t han in ontologw" tha t invites one to re - th ink and re- imagine w h a t const i tutes the self and other in the first place (Levinas, 1998b, p. 64).

USELESS SUFFERING 335

6. In the context of documentary photography, Susan Sontag's On Photography (1973) and more recent publication Regarding the Pain of Others (2003) suggests the complicity of photography in perpetuating the very conditions of violence it wants to circumvent. 7. Such responses, while moving the self to know and to feel about and fbr the other, tend to frame suffering in terms of one's own knowledge or emotionality and thus, through understanding and empathy, enable the self to avoid the more painful encounter with what Levinas (1998a) has referred to as, "the just suffering in me for the unjustifiable suffering in the other" (p. 94). Thus, while such responses might signify a genuine concern for the other, and are indeed active, they are at the same time compliant with the notion that it is possible to feel one's way into others, thereby shutting down possibilities for the imagination of ethical modes of attentiveness and the formation of solidarities in alterity, rather than in sameness.

Author's Address: Ontario Inst i tute for Studies in Education University of Toronto 252 Bloor Street West Toronto, Ontario CANADA M5S 1V6

R E F E R E N C E S Benhabib, S., Butler, J., Cornell D., & Fraser, N. (1995). Feminist

contentions: A philosophical exchange. New York: Routledge. Benjamin, J. (1998). The shadow of the other: Intersubjectivity and gender

in psychoanalysis. New York: Routledge. Boler, M. (1999). Feeling power: Emotions and education. New York and

London: Routledge. Brown, W. (1995). States of injury: Power and freedom in late modernity.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Levinas, E. (1998a). Useless suffering. In E. Levinas (Ed.; M.B. Smith & B.

Harshav, Trans.). Entre nous: Thinking-of-the-other (pp. 91-102). New York: Columbia University Press.

Levinas, E. (1998b). Otherwise than being or beyond essence (A. Lingis, Trans.). Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.

Levinas, E. (1998c). Diachrony and representation. In E. Levinas (Ed.; M.B. Smith & B. Harshav, Trans.). Entre nous: Thinking-of-the-other (pp. 159-177). New York: Columbia University Press.

Portillo, L. (Director). (2001). Missing young woman [Motion Picture]. United States: Independent Television Service.

336 LISA FARLEY

Robbins, J. (2001a). Being-for-the-other. In J. Robbins (Ed.; J. Robbins, Trans.). Is it righteous to be?: Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas (pp. 114-120). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Robbins, J. (2001b). Vocation of the other. In J. Robbins (Ed.; J. Robbins, Trans.). Is it righteous to be?: Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas (pp. 105-113). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Shohat, E. (Ed.). (1998). Talking visions: Multiculturalism in a transnational age. New York: MIT Press.

Simon, R. (2000). The touch of the past: The pedagogical significance of a transactional sphere of public memory. In P. Trifonas (Ed.), Revolutionary pedagogies: Cultural politics, instituting education, and the discourse of theory (pp. 61-80). New York: Routledge.

Sontag, S. (1973). On photography. New York: Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux. Sontag, S. (2003). Regarding the pain of others. New York: Farrar ,

Straus & Giroux.