November 26, 2006
Fragilize Yourself
"Compassion is originary, it doesn't enter the commerce of any exchange, and from that point of view peace is not in dialogue with war. I don't have to feel empathy for my perpetrators, nor do I have to understand them, but this doesn't mean that I will hand them the mandate to destroy my own compassion which is one of my channels for accessing the non-I. To suffocate my own compassion would be a kind of mental and affective paralysis, since primary compassion is a spontaneous way of transsubjective knowing of/in the unknown Other before and beyond any possible economy of inter-subjective exchange. It is in that sense that in compassion one is fragilizing one's self."
--Bracha L. Ettinger, Ph.D (see Nov. '06 Underfire archives by author)
[photo defense link/not underfire]
~So much commerce so little time for knowing.
Posted by Stubbornson at November 26, 2006 12:53 PM