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(1982) Proximity, Dordrecht, Springer.

Alterity in the general economy

parole

Joseph Libertson

pp. 274-296

The parole in proximity is the existence of closure as an excess, inspired by the exterior and inclined toward the latter. The Bataillian terms which describe this inspiration are inachèvement or "incompletion" and dépense. These terms describe closure as an exigency: a recoiling from the general economy which is, by virtue of excess and incompletion, a recoiling into the economy. Closure is a transgression of closure: a unicity whose paroxysm forces it "outward", "into the exterior": au dehors, pour l'autre. The terms rire, expérience, non-savoir, etc. describe the unicity of beings which "come to life losing themselves in communication."1 Bataillian incarnation is an inclination toward alterity which is produced by an inextrication from the latter in the process of individuation. Closure's exigency becomes, beyond its thematization in reproduction, a "transfer to the impersonality of life."2 The "effort of autonomy" is always, in its latent economy, a perte or "loss" and, as such, describes a communicational situation in which autonomy has no privilege. Against this background, Bataille has little difficulty in subordinating the concept of an intersubjective encounter to this non-reciprocal model of communication. The latter's movement is always a sens unique or "one-way" movement in which the economy's excess forces interiority toward alterity. The intersubjective other of Bataille's fictional and theoretical text is always defined as a pléthore or a moment of the pléthore (the excess of alterity over interiority), before it is defined as a constituted subjectivity. When the parole becomes a primary predicate of differentiation and affirmation in Bataille, its dissymetry is immediately palpable: "And this movement of my thought which flees me, not only can I not avoid it, but there is no instant so secret that it does not animate me. Thus I speak, everything in me gives itself to others."3

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-009-7449-4_7

Full citation:

Libertson, J. (1982). Alterity in the general economy: parole, in Proximity, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 274-296.

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