The Erotic/Aesthetic Quality Seen from the Perspective of Levinas’s Ethical An-archaeology

Abstract

This paper emphasizes the place and the role of the aesthetic quality and the role of the erotic in Levinas’s project that deals with ethical an-archaeology. Despite Levinas’s categorical statements that there are irreconcilable differences between ethics and aesthetics, i.e. between ethics and the erotic, above all, it is emphasized here that these differences do not represent a stark or sharp contrast, but quite contrary, they often constitute a subversive ontological element. On the other hand, somewhat unexpectedly, with its ethical anti-aestheticism Levinas’s “noncontemporary” thought appears to be, at the same time, both significant and critical, elementary, emancipatory and contemporary in relation to present-day reactionary reactualization and revitalization of the aesthetic quality which mechanically proceeds to develop on the margins of Levinas’s emancipatory past.

U ovom članku naznačuje se mesto i uloga onog estetskog u Levinasovom projektu etičke an-arheologije, kao i status koji erotika ima u tom projektu. Naglašava se u prvom redu da uprkos autorovim izričitim postavkama o nepomirljivosti etike i estetike, odnosno etike i erotike, ta opozicija ne funkcioniše kao oštar i rezak kontrast, nego se, upravo obrnuto, neretko pokazuje kao subverzivna ontološka sprega. S druge strane, u odnosu na današnju reakcionarnu reaktualizaciju i revitalizaciju estetskog, koja se tek mehanički odvija na rubovima njegove emancipatorske prošlosti, Levinasova „nesavremena“ misao se svojim etičkim antiesteticizmom, donekle neočekivano, ipak ujedno ukazuje kao jedno još uvek bitno kritičko i elementarno emancipatorsko savremeno mišljenje.