Ethical acknowledgment of Others can coexist with unchanged self-conception.

Evidence

Thought of the Other is the moral generosity disposing me to accept the principle of alterity, to conceive of the world as not simple and straightforward, with only one truthmine. But thought of the Other can (twell within me without making me alter course, without “prizing me open,” without changing me within myse1f. An ethical principle, it is enough that l not violate it. … The other of Thought is precisely this altering. Then l have to act. That is the moment 1 change my thought, without renouncing its contribution. l change, and l exchange. — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 785

Categorization

• DEFINE: Glissant names the crucial gap between an ethical encounter with alterity (which changes nothing) and the moment alterity actually alters the self - the passage distinguishes ‘thought of the Other’ from ‘the other of Thought’.
• XREF: Connects directly to the strategic-essentialism research thread: this is a candidate mechanism for holding identity without collapse, similar to how Spivak’s irony holds essentialism at a distance - and the line ‘prizing me open’ echoes Butler’s account of subject-formation. — connects to: Ethics is only possible given a gap between oneself and oneself — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 5; Moral character holds coexisting possibilities that circumstances alternately surface — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 50
• QUESTION: Glissant says the moment of actual alteration is when ‘I change and I exchange’ - is this alteration reversible or accumulative? Whether one can exchange without being permanently pried open bears on whether ironic identity-holding is collectively available.

Broader Connections

• Ethics is only possible given a gap between oneself and oneself #qualifies (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 5
• Moral character holds coexisting possibilities that circumstances alternately surface #complicates (0.72) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 50