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Emmanuel Levinas critiques the political sovereignty of what is Said (le Dit), the surface differences and visible identities politics imposes, through a recourse to the nudity of the invisible face, which, audible rather than visible, is a pre-predicative Saying (le Dire). Although Levinas does not deny systemic and political injustices, he is not convinced that the solution to these problems is itself systemic and political, as the political is a problem rather than a solution. Only the ethical and/or religious can offer a response to the problem of the political. Given this Levinassian edifice, then, this article argues that all thinking that fails to skeptically unsay (le Dé ; dire) the social and institutionalized differences of the political machine makes no difference. The article will first articulate why, following Levinas, politics is the problem rather than a solution and then explain why ethical (and religious) relation is prior to politics (and ontology) by demarcating different senses of thirdness (le tier). A criticism of natural rights will follow before some concluding remarks are offered that explain how one might enact a skeptical comportment toward all politics that may nevertheless let political situations lie exactly as they were.

published_or_final_version ; Politics and Public Administration ; Doctoral ; Doctor of Philosophy

AbstractThis article examines how attitudes and structures of indifference to oppression and global inequality—practices of cruelty—are cultivated at both macro (institutional) and micro (everyday life) levels. First, following (Inayatullah and Blaney 2010a, 2010b), I suggest that a core premise of classical political economy—the split between self and other—is depoliticized and rationalized by contemporary discourses of international political economy. This depoliticization is a condition of possibility for attitudes of indifference. Consequently, understanding attitudes and structures of indifference requires re-politicizing political economy as a cultural encounter structured through gendered and racialized hierarchies. Second, I argue that indifference to cruelty is cultivated through recourse to ethical rather than political imperatives, which foreground ethical action in ways that continue to depoliticize the cruelties of global inequality. Two sites animate this project and foreground a form of banal cruelty justified through the cultivation of political indifference: at the microlevel, a dystopian short story that takes an ethicized indifference as the basis for accounting for racialized and gendered labor migration (George Saunders' "The Semplica Girl Diaries"), and, at the macro-level, Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker programs, which produce depoliticized justifications for systemic racialized exploitation. I argue that this ethicization of political relationships is a way of precluding engagement with the colonial politics of indifference and the everyday cruelties of political economy through which inequalities and exploitations are produced and reproduced.

Most theories of radicalization focus on the birth of antidemocratic ideas, semantics, behavior patterns and organizations. However, such focus is one-sided: radicalization is as much about the forgetting of historical lessons and the weakening of a democratic consensus, as the spreading of populist ideas. A case study of public and private processes of memory transmission in Hungary reveals how the ambiguous relation to modernization affects political formation: the failures provoke populist reactions, while the successes result in political indifference. The combination of these two political cultures creates a dangerous compound including both the opportunity for the birth of antidemocratic semantics and their ignorance. The author analyzes the potential of such «incubation of radicalism» on a European survey

The present study adresses the problem of citizen indifference in democracy and argues that there is a causal connection between sovereign state interest and the pervasive influence od indifference among citizenry. This research argues that political indifference is the result of precise dynamics that gradually dissolve the democratic foundations of the state and impose a stronger authority. A a consequence, three dynamics of indifference are proposed as drivers of sovereign interest to render a citizenry passive on issues of democratic importance. There are 'paranoid thinking' based on fear, where a problem marked by urgency activates insecurity and instigates citizens to request the state´s strong intervention. The 'epistemology of control' based on a central structure of command marks the second dynamic as a progressive pluralisation of powers, with political pratices increasingly substracted to the public's jurisdiction. Finally, the third 'dynamic invisibility and marginality' signals the disappearance of the initial problem from the public interest. I suggest that the use of discourse constructed around these three dynamics is the key to controlled opinions in lieuof a flagrant ideological indoctrination. The resulting effect is that the state is strengthened whilst the civic engagement of citizens desintegrates, yet within processes that remain 'democratic' in form if not substance. Resumo O presente estudo aborda o problema da indiferença dos cidadãos na democracia e argumenta que existe uma conexão causal entre o interesse estatal soberano e a influência generalizada da indiferença entre os cidadãos. Esta investigação argumenta que a indiferença política é o resultado de dinâmicas precisas que gradualmente dissolvem os fundamentos democráticos do Estado e impõem uma autoridade mais forte. Como consequência, três dinâmicas de indiferença são propostas como impulsionadoras do interesse soberano para tornar uma cidadania passiva em questões de importância democrática. Há um 'pensamento paranóico' baseado no medo, onde um problema marcado pela urgência ativa a insegurança e instiga os cidadãos a solicitarem a forte intervenção do Estado. A "epistemologia do controlo", baseada numa estrutura central de comando, marca a segunda dinâmica como uma pluralização progressiva de poderes, com práticas políticas cada vez mais subtraídas à jurisdição do público. Finalmente, a terceira "invisibilidade e marginalidade dinâmica" assinala o desaparecimento do problema inicial do interesse público. Sugiro que o uso do discurso construído em torno dessas três dinâmicas é a chave para opiniões controladas em lugar de uma doutrinação ideológica flagrante. O efeito resultante é que o estado é fortalecido enquanto o engajamento cívico dos cidadãos se desintegra, mas dentro dos processos que permanecem como 'democráticos' em forma, se não em substância.