In Kant's critique of judgment, which contain the famous lines on the
sublime; it could be said... (and I'll stop posting on this interview...now)
http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~davis/ronell4.htm
<http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/%7Edavis/ronell4.htm>
In my work on trauma TV, I began by citing a psychoanalyst who made the
assertion, concerning World War 11, that one was made responsible by
dint of having/seen,/having/witnessed./So there is already a testimonial
quality to responsibility. What this means is that the boundaries are
really moving in on you because it displaces the categories of doing
to/seeing/--you are responsible even for what you
have/seen./Responsibility is monstrous. As Derrida has observed, once
you say, "Well, I have acquitted myself; I have acted responsibly," that
is your moment of irresponsibility. In the very moment that doubt is
removed and you feel you have accomplished your ethical task, you have
relinquished it. It is in this context that decision, then, needs to be
placed and understood, but not as a preemptive strike or with the
assumption that judgment has been made, conclusively, definitively, and
in a way that we could consider it to close the case. There is a
temporality of decision that has to be scrupulously considered.
And, now me... Well, I have acquitted myself; I have acted responsibly
about safe sex. About harm reduction injecting drug use. Now I have no
need of condoms or clean needles.
|