Medium

On the right to make oneself noticed

In this essay I would like to bring into remembrance a medium that, although never exactly forgotten, seems to have been dismembered from contemporary liberal thought, having thus lost its function as a medium. First I will introduce this special medium. Then I will regard those who one must regard as the most comprehensive political thinkers in relation to our actual situation, for the time being: John Rawls and Martha C. Nussbaum. Finally, by showing what is lacking in the thick and thin lists of the goods and the good, I will propose an addition, that is: the right to make use of the special medium which I will now introduce.

The medium I am referring to is not one necessarily conveying any specific meaning, and as such forwarding understanding. It is a medium laying the groundwork for all possible understanding. That might sound rather universal and abstract, but in fact it is the most sensuous medium, as the following example will hopefully clarify.

Look!

If two people were to get shipwrecked on a desert island, miles apart from each other, what then could best be done in order for them to find one another? This problem cannot be solved without introducing something new into the story. This new thing then, will be an exemplar of the sensuous medium I would like to bring to attention.
If the shipwrecked want to find each other, it is not enough for them to rely on reason only. They might for instance think it a good idea to write right back in the sand. A fairly reasonable thought it seems. However, because it is so reasonable, the other person is most likely to come up with the same plan and make his own sign. Having two meeting signs is very unreasonable. Their shared thoughts are of no use if not applied to some shared thing. So they ought to turn their attention to their environment. What will most likely catch their eyes?

The thing that is most noticeable.

The island might consist of: lots of sand, palms and a mountain. Of course then the mountain is the most noticeable thing. For instance in being the only one, shaped like an eagle, or printed in bold. As the mountain is so very noticeable, it is reasonable for one to assume it will manipulate the other’s senses likewise. Thus making the mountain the most perfect thing to which they can assign their shared thought, and decide on it as their meeting place.

The medium I am bringing back to mind is presented thus far as ‘noticeable thing’. As such a rather vague presentation. And so it must be. It is vague because we are not sure how much it’s being noticeable is subjectively tied to the viewer, depending on the circumstances, or tied to its objective existence. I will not go into the metaphysics. All I can say is that it really takes a most virtuous person to find the right balance between the two.
It might however help to present it to you with a more familiar name. For, what is the concept of ‘most noticeable thing’ when applied to the human being; playing a roll that lies somewhere midway ourselves, the environment, and the others? We name it Identity. This is the vague notion I will use in relation to the human being, in my attempt to show the important role it should play as a medium between the others, the environment, and us.

Shared Identity 1

To show the relevance of this notion of identity, it might be exemplary to regard its appropriation by Hobbes in his Leviathan. If one would replace the mountain in the story of the shipwrecked by some sovereign, we are already a long way ahead in defining the relation between the people and the noticeable thing they are subjugating themselves to.
As it was not enough for the shipwrecked to find one another by reason alone, so is it not enough for Hobbes’ people to bind them to some contract, for instance stating to be nice to each other. Even not if signed by all. For how could one tell whether the other is taking his signing seriously? The other’s intentions can so easily be doubted. And since the other knows he can so easily be doubted, the doubting as such is perfectly reasonable.
So, what is needed is something they can all subjugate themselves to. Just like the shipwrecked choose to let themselves be led by the mountain. If one would know all the others subjugated to the same thing one is subjugated to himself, he would know what would be on their minds. Thus making them safely predictable.
This roll of noticeable thing in Hobbes theory is to be played by the Sovereign. All will subjugate themselves to him by a contract between all others that are to be subjugated as well. The Sovereign’s being noticeable lays in the fact that his being is contingent, not bound by any contract. His doings might be completely arbitrary; he can do as he pleases. Yet it is precisely because of being arbitrary, the whole group is able to function as one actual being, for they are all sharing the same identity: which is their master’s as well as their master.

Liberal Identity

Rawls liberal state has not got some Sovereign’s face, and so its identity is unclear. Thus he devised a method to self-reflect. For clearly, in such a faceless state more is asked for than just taking things for face value.
Although Rawls’ theory is a contract theory, it makes no use of some fiction of a natural state, so as to bring about nice contrasts. Instead he uses what he calls the ‘original position’: a purely hypothetical situation, designed to bring out the basic structure of our society, if it was to be as fair as it possibly could. The original position doesn’t give much direction, as Hobbes’ State of Nature surely would make one run. Instead it offers a means for self-reflection.
The hypothesis of the Original Position shows us what would be the fairest distribution of the elementary goods. The participants are to be imagined veiled, so as to make them completely ignorant of all that would make them actual people inhabiting particular places in society. Thus ignorant of who will be who, and so of whom will get what, they are then to choose the elementary goods, and its distribution. Rawls claims that in this way everything will be done in the fairest way possible. Which does not necessarily mean that everything will be divided equal. Rawls does make room for talented people, deserving for instance more cash. But they only do so if even the poorest souls would benefit from this arrangement, and end up better as when everything would have been left equal.
Because every reasonable person can envisage this hypothesis of the original position, we can rediscover our rules as self-chosen, and consider ourselves voluntarily bound. Thus looking back on the state we devised, we can see that it is good.
However, one could wonder about how to conceive of this state as a blind self-enclosed whole in regard to its surroundings. How is the outside to be regarded? How are our actions abroad to be judged? In being faceless as a whole, the state is not offering any means for communication with the people not sharing this no-face. How could we then ever hope for them to join?

Shared Identity 2

By contrast, my Aristotelian conception is concerned with ends and with the overall shape and content of the human form of life*.

Nussbaum might just give the liberal state its face. Maybe it is a very vague face, but at least it is a face sharing some familiar features with faces across the border, making global communication much more likely.
Nussbaum points us to the fact that we do recognise others as beings of the same species. That means we must at least share some features, even though they might have developed differently, or in different relation to each other, depending on the circumstances. We might best regard these features as family-resemblance. We share some features with some, some others we share with others. We are no singular group, with all of us forced into the same suit, but we are not identities in complete isolation from each other either.
However nice that sounds, there might still be a slight problem with the conception of Nussbaum’s thick vague list, composed of all the features that make us understand ourselves as human. The actual list Nussbaum presents us with might indeed be accepted by most, but the way she came up with them, might be doubted. For how can she ever really know if in assigning importance to some features, and assuming her way of assigning to be shared by most, she is not just projecting her own concepts? Again there seems to be the problem of direction, as was solved earlier on so harshly by Hobbes. The others and Nussbaum are not able to point to some external feature to decide upon.
That is why someone, possibly someone French, might object to Nussbaum, pointing out the likelihood of her only projecting. The possibly-French then forwards his or her own claim: to respect those who are radically other to us in their being so. Nussbaum ofcourse objects to this, claiming we surely share matters of life and death. But even those matters would be regarded by the possibly-French as relative to the conceptual scheme we happen to be bound to. He or she might claim that even in matters of life and death, we should not assist the radical others, for that might ruin their own special ways of doing.
Nussbaum needed not have given her essentialist argument. The possibly-French has already given him- or herself away in the claim that the radical others, possibly Polynesian, should be left alone. He or she might profess this otherness to be of the highest sublime beauty, but really, something so neatly isolated must be regarded kitsch. He or she has completely isolated the radical other. What are we to think of a radical otherness being isolated, not by own choice, with kind regard to the outside, but by the French?
Exactly like Nussbaum, the possibly-French is also neglecting the function of identity as a medium I am wishing to put forward now. If isolated, the radical other is denied existence in the space we share, whatever that space might be. He is denied forming his own identity in and against this vague space we might understand to share. And in being denied such an identity, any hope of being noticed, of communication, understanding, or even misunderstanding, is rendered impossible. We do need for something to be presented.

Identity as medium

Identity is of such a kind that it opens up possibilities for communication, without even necessarily saying something, or of being understood for that matter. The only demand is that it is noticeable, so that it will be part of people’s environment. In making it noticeable, one could use tried methods, like for instance: authenticity, brutal force or simply charm. And because identity is so very adaptable to any situation and as such able to survive any specific meaning, I find that identity indeed offers us the most suitable international glue.
Therefore it is most important to give everyone the right to attempt to make oneself noticeable. That does not imply we should go and look around more carefully. It means we should offer the same goods that are giving us the possibility of being noticed. So we have to connect them to the Internet. All that is presented on it, no matter how uncommunicative, in its being a presentation, it could possibly be noticed as such, and regarded not as some fictitious natural thing we stumbled upon, but as something actually seeming to convey some meaning we need not necessarily understand. But it is there.

The new 100$ computer, with camera and internet-connection will do just fine. If 4.5 billion people would need one for free, there are still individuals to be found in our liberal state who would be able to finance it all by themselves. Imagine! With so cheap a price, it is a great injustice to deny beings their own face, leaving them nothing but the fleshy one, of which the expression travels ever so little in comparison. This is a crime far worse than not sending any bread.

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