Derrida and the Inheritance of Democracy by Haddad Samir;

Author:Haddad, Samir;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Indiana University Press

Levinas never simply condemns technology. It can rescue from a worse violence [une violence pire], the “reactionary” violence of sacred ravishment, of taking root, of the natural proximity of landscape. “Technology takes us out of the Heideggerean world and the superstitions of Place.” It offers the chance “to let the human face shine in its nudity” [Difficult Freedom]. We will return to this. Here, we only wish to foreshadow that within history—but is it meaningful elsewhere?—every philosophy of non-violence can only choose the lesser violence [la moindre violence] within an economy of violence.40

Derrida claims that while he is opposed to technology in some respects, Levinas also recognizes that it can be mobilized against communal and nationalistic tendencies. Both technology and these latter tendencies are violent, and Levinas supports the former in this context as the less violent of two options. In question is a comparative judgment of degree within a system in which violence is inevitable, and so translating “la moindre violence” as “the lesser violence” is appropriate.

Later in the essay, when Derrida articulates more fully the kind of strategic engagement with violence that he argues is necessary, “la moindre violence” reappears.

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