Ethical Theory: Blanchot (Lexicon) [add if you can]

Question 1

désoeuvrement

Answer 1

“the work as the work’s lack – the work as unmindful of being or not being, as neither present nor absent; neutral” (xxix)

uneventfulness; worklessness; unworking

Question 2

community

Answer 2

traditional vs. elective community:
traditional community is imposed on us without choice in the matter (de facto sociality)
elective community exists only through a decision that gathers its members around a choice

Question 3

love, lovers

Answer 3

“community of lovers” (46)

Question 4

récit

Answer 4

“The tale (récit) is not the narration of an event, but that event itself, the approach to that event, the place where that event is made to happen — an event which is yet to come and through whose power of attraction the tale (récit) can hope to come into being too.” The notion of the récit is clearly linked to Blanchot’s sense of “narrative voice”’ (xxii)

Question 5

“doing nothing”

Answer 5

ex) walk in procession for the dead of Charonne
“I believe that a form of community happened then, different from the one whose character we had thought to have defined, one of those moments when communism and community meet up and ignore that they have realized themselves by losing themselves immediately.” (32)

Question 6

Love

Answer 6

“Love may be a stumbling block for ethics, unless love simply puts ethics into question by imitating it.” (40)
a return to wilderness

pg. 40-1

Question 7

“infinite relationship”

Answer 7

??

pg. 43

Question 8

Blanchot’s use of obscurity

Answer 8

Blanchot is obscure because he is true to the nature of difficult, nearly unspeakable questions, or literally unthinkable concerns

pg. xiv