Lara Maria - Narrating Evil: A Post-metaphysical Theory of Reflective Judgment

Narrating Evil

NEW DIRECTIONS IN CRITICAL THEORY

Amy Allen, General Editor

NEW DIRECTIONS IN CRITICAL THEORY

Amy Allen, General Editor

New Directions in Critical Theory presents outstanding classic and contemporary texts in the tradition of critical social theory, broadly construed. The series aims to renew and advance the program of critical social theory, with a particular focus on theorizing contemporary struggles around gender, race, sexuality, class, and globalization and their complex interconnections.

Narrating Evil

A Postmetaphysical Theory

of Reflective Judgment

Mara Pa Lara

Columbia University Press

New York

To Nancy Fraser,

Whose friendship I value as the one true gift from life

Contents

This book was made possible through a number of research fellowships that allowed me to complete it after spending some time in those exciting academic environments. I would first like to thank The Fulbright Foundation for awarding me a 20012002 fellowship, which I spent as a visiting scholar at the New School for Social Research (now the New School University) in New York City. I want to express my gratitude to the New School for its generous assistance in making my year there a wonderful experience. I also wish to thank the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at the University of Stanford (Stanford, California); the Institute provided a place to start my research as a visiting scholar in 199899. I am indebted to my own universityUniversidad Autnoma Metropolitanafor giving me its generous support and a permanent place to develop my ideas and interests. For their institutional support in allowing me to finish my manuscript, I owe sincere gratitude to my colleague and friend Rodrigo Daz, the dean of the division of Social Sciences; to Luis Felipe Segura, the chair of my department; and to Max Fernndez, the coordinator of the philosophy departament. And warm thanks to Teresa Luna, secretary of the department, for all her invaluable help, support, and loyalty throughout the years that I have worked at the University.

I am greatly indebted to the Philosophy and Social Sciences Conference in Prague, which provided an important critical forum to debate the ideas in this book. This yearly conference offered me an extraordinary opportunity to meet leading scholars from all over the world. The board of directors, all talented academics themselvesFrank Michelman, Axel Honneth, Jean Cohen, Alessandro Ferrara, Marek Hrubec, and Peter Dews, as well as the newest appointed directors, Bill Scheuerman, Hartmut Rosa, Rainer Forst, Maeve Cooke, and Nancy Frasereach, at one time or another, gave me the chance to assist and participate in lively debates. They have enriched my work with helpful commentaries and acute critical suggestions. These experiences have been extraordinarily formative to me. To them all, and to those who regularly attended the conference, my sincerest gratitude and recognition.

I further benefited from the suggestions of other helpful readers and friends who critiqued both earlier and later versions of the manuscript. I am particularly grateful for the support received from Richard Bernstein, Nancy Fraser, Carol Bernstein, Amy Allen, Simone Chambers, Alessandro Ferrara, Ronald Beiner, Robert Fine, Eli Zarestky, and Vanna Gessa-Kurokschtka. I profited additionally from the useful comments of anonymous reviewers selected by Columbia University Press; their careful and respectful consideration proved insightful. Without their invaluable help, this volume could not have been completed.

Needless to say, I alone am responsible for its final outcome. But many thanks are due to my dear friend and talented playwright Kathleen Anderson for her encouragement and technical facility in helping me produce the various English versions of the original manuscript. The last of these was beautifully improved by the skills and professional help of Roy Thomas, my copyeditor at Columbia University Press, who deserves thanks for the care and energy he put into the project.

Special recognition must go to Wendy Lochner, senior executive editor at Columbia University Press, who believed in the book from the start and gave me her unstinting support throughout the completion of the project. I also owe a singular debt of thanks to my dear friend and talented artist Laura Anderson-Barbata, whose beautiful cover design reflects in a perfect way the books arguments; her generous collaboration on this project is a gift I will always remember. To my student Mario Hernndez, who helped me with everything in the entire process of making this book possible, I owe more than I can say with words; without his assistance and enthusiastic attitude toward the whole enterprise, I wouldnt have made it

Deepest thanks must go to my dear friend and colleague Manuel Cruz, whose permanent presence in my life has allowed me to resist and endure its obstacles and hardships.

Finally, I am especially grateful to Nora Rabotnikov, the dear friend who, when we met, made me think for the first time on the issues raised here. She is the inspiration and the soul of this book.

Why has evil become such a hot topic these days? Although there could be many reasons, it seems to me that the most important onethe most interestinghas to do with our growing concern with how this age-old problem has entered more and more into our consciousness. In other words, in spite of our failure to cope with human cruelty, we possess a clearer, more moral way to analyze what we call atrocities. Our last century was plagued by horrific actions of human cruelty; nevertheless, something about our understanding has been transformed. This book seeks to explore what has changed, why this transformation matters, and how we can learn from this specific historical development.

The transformation of the way we view cruelty between humans has been the result of collective efforts that have focused on the idea that our moral outlook is constructed socially and individually. What this means is that we have recognized that even if we cannot impede other horrible actions from happening, we can, at least, understand why things could have taken a different road. This allows us to design new institutions and collective efforts that can help us prevent such actions from taking place in the future. An understanding of our failures makes it possible to learn from past catastrophes. This is not a triumphant view of human flaws. It is, rather, a way of saying that we can construct a moral conscience through collective efforts of self-examination and that these efforts have allowed us to produce institutions that provide us with the sense that justice can be achieved after we understand the kinds of crimes that we commit against each other. It is no coincidence that the twentieth century was one of genocide. It was also the century during which the real material aspects of international law became more than just mere theory. The tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo demonstrate the first stages of our collective efforts to make a connection between a moral understanding of evil deeds and the need to translate that consciousness into crimes committed against humanity. Our moral sense of understanding that what happened in the past can be held as reasons to build political and legal institutions is also another way of recognizing that people who have committed heinous crimes can be held accountable as individuals before their own societies. The fact that we cannot erase our past does not imply that we cannot place our future in a different social setting. This is the most important reason why we now need to focus on what makes these social efforts possible and find a way to put them into motion.