Nonetheless, new possibility is not a coincident consequence in the ethical responsibility; instead, certain extent or kind of freedom must be involved. That is, while new possibilities in the ethical relation have impressively sketched the
humanistic vein of the ethical relation, freedom would be a notion which should not be neglected. No new possibilities would come if the self doesn’t have the power to respond in his own way. That is, if we want to delve into the issue of an-Other human prospect, it might be necessary to examine how freedom is linked with these new possibilities. Freedom and autonomy are espoused to characterize the
traditional humanism in modernity. Generally speaking, freedom entitles people to doing things at their will. It is regarded as some kind of inherent power to choose or do what, one thinks, is right and just. However, the ethical relation substitutes a different freedom for that in modernity since “the humanism of the Other” no longer presupposes the self-autonomy. Levinas states that “Ethics redefines subjectivity as this heteronomous responsibility, in contrast to autonomous freedom.”(Cohen 27).
In addition to its difference from the autonomous freedom which presupposes a self-centered subjectivity, the freedom does not involve the suppression of law as law is believed to be repressive. What characterizes the freedom in the ethical relation is
the precedence of the ethical obligation or responsibility for the Other. Freedom usually comes after the consciousness of the responsibility. Yet, the inevitable ethical confrontation does not mean the imposition of certain rules or delimitations constraining the self; instead, the self facing an indeterminate Other lacks a fixed anchorage to base himself but enjoys a difficult freedom (in Levinas’s terms) to react or respond to the Other. And, the difficult freedom is not a new or special idea since the absolute freedom is impossible as Levinas argues that
[i]f man’s happiness and freedom demanded the suppression of law, if every law as law were repressive, if every freedom were concerned in the natural sense of arbitrary will, the West would reveal itself to be opposed to everything it had been up until then, breaking with what it had been according to the Bible and the humanities analogous to the Bible.
(Levinas 1990: 285)
The freedom has been a concept conditioned in a certain way. In Kant, man’s freedom has to correspond to the absolute reason. Freedom is not a concept which could be isolated to think about; otherwise, different individualisms collide with different freedom, as Kant remarks that “Freedom, insofar as it can coexist with the freedom of every other in accordance with a universal law, is the only original right belonging to every human being in virtue of his humanity” (Guyer 259). That is why Kant subsumes the notion of freedom under the idea of reason to keep the ethical harmony and justice. In contrast, Levinasian ethics is meant to break away from the notion of reason founded on the logic of the One. Freedom thus becomes difficult but not impossible. The asymmetrical relation with the Other precedes freedom which contributes to the self’s new possibilities. In a sense, only in the self’s response to the Other does freedom emerge. This could be illustrated in Michelle Darnell’s idea of freedom which is founded on the self’s relation with time and action.
Darnell contends that “[t]he awareness of self as free must be awareness of self as free now, in this moment, because while it is freedom that permits my acting at all, it is
also this freedom that allows me to stop an action whenever I want to” (18).
According to Darnell, it is freedom that launches one’s action. Such a notion of freedom is appropriate to consider the self’s responsibility in Levinasian configuration since there is no rules for the self to follow in the ethical obligation. But, the
freedom is difficult since the ethical responsibility is inescapable although there is no restraint in his reaction or response to the Other. It is a state of having
“consciousness of self being presently in the world, and have consciousness of self being presently free in the world” (Darnell 18). Nonetheless, the consciousness of being in the world is far from the self-referential but designates the ethical relation with the irreducible and unthematizable Other. It is freedom embedded in uncertainty and insecurity with no rules or standards offered. The self has to
respond individually and originally, seemingly facing an open challenge in the ethical Other which makes possible the new and individual facets of the self. That is, the ethical responsibility is accompanied by the obligation-engaged but
indeterminacy-bound freedom in the self’s confrontation with the Other.
Conclusion: An-Other Prospect of Humanism
DeLillo’s depiction of the ethical relation corresponding to that of Levinas is pivoted on the irreducible, incomprehensible Other, which is meant to recuperate the distinctiveness and incommensurability of the Other. It leaves the self in the ethical relation nearly overwhelmed and even dissolved, with the self-autonomy and
self-sufficiency disquieted and dissolved. Moreover, DeLillo does not mean to reduplicate a self either lapsing into a nomadic and contingent subjectivity or merely end up with a being despite oneself. Engaged in the Other-oriented relation, the
self’s responsibility is just what arouses the individuality marked by new possibilities.
What is worth-noting is that these new possibilities, not founded on a self-centered and integrate subjectivity, demonstrates a self engaged in the temporal-spatial ethical fabrics. And, it is observed that Lyotard’s notion of the event and Mead’s
differentiating the “me” from the “I” in the self help shed light on the possibility of individuality in DeLillo’s depiction of ethics in the postmodern age. Time accounts for the unknowable and ungraspable Other who awakes the self to the inevitable responsibility. And, it is through time that space is incorporated to account for the bodily inscription of these new possibilities. For the responsibility to the Other, the self has to respond individually and distinctly. Nevertheless, it is impossible to talk about individuality without referring to some sort of freedom. Freedom is neither the extension of one’s autonomous will nor the correspondence to the absolute Reason in terms of Kant. It is espoused to one’s inescapable responsibility for the Other and teems with the indeterminate and the unknown. It is with the difficult freedom that the self brings about new possibilities in his responsibility for the ethical Other.
Hence, the seemingly overwhelmed and dissolved self in DeLillo actually suggests an-Other perspective of the human which at once designates the self’s responsibility for the Other and confirms the individuality marked with the potential for unlimited and constrained new possibilities.